Welcome to Neles 2021 financial statements review briefing. Interim President and CEO, Simo Sääskilahti will be presenting the results followed by a Q&A session. Before we start, let me remind you that this will be recorded and available online at Neles website. Please also take note of the disclaimer related to the merger consideration in the United States. The merger consideration shares have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered, sold or delivered within or into the United States, except pursuant to an applicable exemption from or in a transaction not subject to the Securities Act. Please take note of this disclaimer beforehand. Now, Simo Sääskilahti, please go ahead. Okay. Thank you, Rita. Good afternoon, everybody. I will first talk through the highlights of the fourth quarter and then also review the main highlights, main developments during 2021 and then a few words about kind of the priorities for 2022. It was a positive ending to a challenging year. 20% organic order growth in Q4. Actually, the reported growth was 27%, but on comparable organic basis, 20% is a pretty good growth for the fourth quarter. The positive situation with Pulp, Paper and Bioproducts continued also in the fourth quarter. Same can be said about the services that has been on good level the whole year and continued in the fourth quarter. What we saw then on our fourth quarter is the continued recovery of our MRO driven business. This is more like day-to-day and distribution business of valves. That business took a hit in 2020 with the pandemic and now in particular towards the end of the year, in the fourth quarter, we saw a good continued recovery. Chemicals, Oil and Gas projects market situation remained weak. It's been weak for the whole year, and that was the case on the fourth quarter also. However, we did see signs of improvement at the end of the year. The projects that are in the sales funnel, we are expecting that we are now moving closer to them being awarded and then expect that there will be better activities in the first half of this current year. We achieved solid sales volumes or good sales volumes which supported solid profitability. Also want to highlight good free cash flow for the whole year and especially in the fourth quarter. We were able to announce two nice milestones with regard to our strategy of diversifying ourselves to new customer industries. The first one, which was already kind of being announced earlier, but what happened is that we closed the transaction of the Flowrox valves and pumps business. This transaction gives Neles some important products, for example, pinch valves, that are in demand in the Metals and Mining industry. It will also provide a lot of knowledge about these markets and the sales channels. We are now in the process of integrating that into Neles. The other kind of nice reported milestone regarding the diversification strategy was a publication of Neles making a partnership with t hyssenkrupp Uhde for basically providing our valve solutions for green hydrogen applications. We've been working systematically in creating a position in this growing new industry. It's in the very early stages, and we want to be there in the beginning. We have a good starting position as industrial gas is a traditional strength area. From that point of view, our valves fit well. Finally, noting that the board of directors has made a proposal to the AGM of a dividend of EUR 0.266 per share. Then looking a bit more into the kind of the numbers. Orders received EUR 170 million, 27% reported growth, and in comparable currencies and organic basis, 20% growth. Sales EUR 174 million, 12% growth, out of which organic component was 8%. Services sales are 9%, that is good development. Actually we saw, as you can note, we saw growth in other businesses that was higher mainly in the MRO side. The reason is that also the situation a year ago was sort of worse than there, so the rebound is therefore a bit higher. We are quite pleased with the progress of the services sales growth throughout the year and also in the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA EUR 26.8 million, 15% of sales. Adjustment items EUR 1.9 million, and they are relating to mergers and acquisitions and other arrangements relating to the Valmet or the ongoing process towards Valmet merger. Looking a bit closer into the different market area. North America has had a good year, pretty impressive, 61% growth compared to last quarter of 2020. Overall, as you can see, the market activity has been good there, and our teams have been very successful at growing the business. EMEA, we are seeing a trend of growth. It's mainly driven by the services and MRO. The project business in this market area has remained quite weak. APAC, the project situation was, in comparable terms, a little bit better. But then on the other hand, in 2020, we had very strong order intake in the market area. From that point of view, we went down in the project activity. Services and MRO both did improve during the year. Similar story in South America, a good progress in the services. MRO, the difference to previous year is mainly that this year there were much less projects. Looking then at the balance sheet at the end of the year. The main thing here is that now you will see the impact of the Flowrox acquisition, mainly in the intangible assets and then a bit in the inventories. Overall, basically, the cash position is pretty close to what it was a year ago despite the dividends and acquisition we made, so quite pleased with the operating cash flows. And balance sheet ratios remain on solid level netting in EUR 1 million annual earning 27%. summarising the market situation and outlook as you can see in the bottom of paper and bio projects for quite a long time or quite a few quarters, we see that on a good level and expect that to continue in the next six months. as mentioned, Chemicals, Oil and Gas projects, beginning of the year was quite good, then it dropped to satisfactory, and finally weak. now, as i mentioned, q4 was weak, but, we believe that the projects start to move and the activity of that business will improve to satisfactory next six months. On Services and MRO-driven, mainly in the beginning of the year, we saw nice development in Services and then throughout the year, the MRO side has been getting better. And, in the Q4, we were already in some market areas, we were in good level and some in satisfactory. We were in satisfactory and good overall, and from the demand side, we expect positive development will continue. Of course, we are still facing the COVID pandemic so which can have an impact in this picture. And, then more on the supply side, we are taking note of the challenges in global logistics and component availability will continue to be there and they will continue in the first half at least which will create some uncertainties. And, then more on the supply side, we are taking note of the challenges in global logistics and component availability will continue to be there and they will continue in the first half at least which will create some uncertainties. Taking a bit, now like a whole year perspective. I've already talked through the comments about the market outlook and situation. Maybe focusing a bit more on the strategic achievements. Also, I think I covered a couple of milestones here mentioning the diversification strategies execution. Another kind of important point about the year is that we actually had a pretty good year in terms of launching new products or new product platforms. We are systematically working on keeping our products competitive so that they meet the requirements of the future process industries and competitive. On that note, there were some important milestones achieved. For example, we launched the first products from our new butterfly valve platform. We extended our control valve offering to cover better solutions that require higher temperatures, for example, in Power and Refining industries. These are important enablers for future growth. Safety-wise, we see ourselves benchmarking to similar companies. Our safety record is quite good. Our LTIF, on the other hand, stayed flat at 1.3 throughout the year. What was positive was that we were able to report many records in our facilities of really long periods of operations without accidents. Of course, we are not happy at the current level because the LTIF is not zero, so we will continue to work towards that. Finally, also supporting the profitability, we were taking quite careful approach in managing the cost and ensuring the profitability, in particular in the beginning of the year. Despite that, we were still able to progress many of these the activities underlying our strategy. Here we have a couple of examples, but then under the hood, there are also many other positive developments. Then going a bit more on our annual basis, looking at the numbers. EUR 625 million orders received, 6% growth. Comparable would have been 7%, so pretty close. Also sales EUR 611 million, 6% or on organic percent basis, 7% growth. Like said, services sales 15% growth, and that backlog growing overall 9%. Adjusted EBITDA EUR 86.8 million or 14% of sales. Again mentioning that there were adjustment items that during the year relate to the M&A and M&A arrangements and also long-term incentive plan changes relating to those M&A situations. Looking a bit more kind of long-term. Overall, we've been talking about our resilient business model. Yes, you can see that there are some cycles, but overall, we have been able to grow faster than the market. In the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, our business volumes orders went down 13%, and then now we are kind of here. We were able to achieve 6% growth. Bouncing back, despite the fact that in Oil and Gas projects, chemical projects, it was a poor year in orders. This is the underlying picture of the resilience of our business model. In the bottom you will see the OPEX-driven business, which is services and what we call the MRO business, maintenance, repair and operations related business. I think in the big picture, this is what many people call. Many companies call broader term services or aftermarket business. That is typically 2/3 of our business, and then it has been steadily growing. The CapEx-driven business mainly consists of projects. Projects we mean large valve deliveries that are related to customer CapEx spending. There you can see more in the history, more volatility. 2020 was a bit of an exceptional year. We had good project order intake there. Still project continued, and the momentum continued throughout the year in Pulp and Paper. In the beginning of the year, there was still kind of some momentum in Oil and Gas and Chemicals. Whereas the COVID pandemic hit quite unusually, we got the hit in our OPEX-driven business, which is the more resilient and stable. Then the ratio turned to more 60/40. Now this year it's swinging back to more normal or maybe even a bit more OPEX-driven heavy, the order mix. Like I said, we have significant differences in the project business market situations between Pulp and Paper and the Oil and Gas. Looking at then, the split of our business by end customer segments. Pulp, Paper and Bio share of Neles sales was already at a, historically speaking, on a good or high level in 2020. That relative share continued to grow in 2021. Other industries currently includes all the Metals and Mining. Then there are a lot of other industries where we sell. Of course, with the acquisition and progress we will be making with Flowrox, hopefully we will be soon reporting that as a separate segment here. In a big picture, no kind of dramatic changes here. Of course, highlighting the strength in the Pulp and Paper and Bio side of our business. Working capital wise or cash flow wise, like I said, pretty nice free cash flow, supported by profitability, but also there were good elements in terms of our managing our working capital receivables. We did pay attention to kind of continuing to manage those, and we achieved positive results. The terms improved quite well. Inventory side, you will see that has gone up. It's partially. There's an element of a Flowrox acquisition impacting that. The challenging logistics situations component and availability and overall ensuring that we have the resources. Basically, the inventories went up and comparable terms were quite flat or even slightly higher than a year ago. On the free cash flow side, then the CapEx was EUR 11 million. We were actually expecting it to be a little bit higher. Some items were delayed and to this year. As you know, also the CapEx profile was pretty heavy or kind of most of it happened in the end of the year and fourth quarter. Looking at the cash conversion rates year end and the CapEx side. CapEx, i t was basically continued to be related to our systems renewals, and operations development. Finally noting that the dividend proposal of EUR 0.266 per share, totaling EUR 40 million corresponding to 70.2% of net earnings is the proposal made by the board to the annual general meeting. Very quickly, what's going on now? We have announced and you may have noticed that we announced a new operating model, which is where the idea is that we will accelerate the execution of our current strategy. We are focusing and giving more focus to developing the long-term growth position in our existing industries. Our existing industries are an exciting phase. There's a lot of renewal between the customers' new needs. We want to work close with the customers and expand our offering and position there. Also systematically working on selected areas to find new industries, Metals and Mining and the Renewable Energy as two good examples. The other point about that is that we want to keep continue developing our processes from more customer-centric point of view. That way improve customer satisfaction and capture more opportunities in involving projects, but also in the MRO and services side. Flowrox integration will continue. I believe we've had a good start there. We will now make sure that we are able to grow the business and also find the cross-sell synergies. Also, among other things of developing our Executing our strategy, we expect that we will continue the launch new extensions of our product offerings. Like I said, reaching new key applications, ensuring competitiveness, ensuring leading performance of our offerings, and that way making sure that we are competitive now, we are competitive in the future. That's 2021 in a nutshell. Thank you. Thank you, Simo. Operator, now we're ready to take some questions. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad and then press the queue. Once your name is announced, you can ask your question. If you find it's answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Antti Kansanen of SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. It's Antti from SEB. Two questions actually. First, on the profitability outlook for this year. Could you comment a little bit on how we should think about both gross profit and revenue kind of phasing of cost inflation and price increases? Then secondly, I mean, the world is opening up. Your markets are turning to growth. What kind of needs or pressures do you see to perhaps ramp up SG&A, marketing, travel costs and so forth? I'll start with that. Okay. Thanks. Yes. The kind of the long-term or midterm growth equation is that we want to grow faster than the market and maintain a kind of solid industry-leading profitability of over 15% EBITA. That continues to be the kind of the guiding thought. Like I said, that there's optimistic signals or positive signals supporting growth in the markets. We will then obviously carefully ramp up our kind of sales footprint and accelerate the R&D, et cetera, as we are getting proof that this growth is seen. That's one thing. Of course, we are seeing that the inflation and the continued kind of logistics costs, et cetera, they continue to be challenges. We are taking action. We are following that closely. We are taking actions in the sales front, but also of course in our procurement side to try to mitigate that impact. That continues to be a risk and a concern. Okay. I'm just thinking about the gross margin. I mean, is there any reason to expect any notable deviation from one way or another in this year? Just thinking about how the pacing of certain inflationary elements hit your P&L. I'm not too familiar on that side of things. Well, overall speaking, like I said, that there are some pressures there. Also once we are seeing the projects kind of coming and supporting the growth, they will typically have a bit eye-opening effect on that. Of course, they will create the future installed base and they are good business. No, I wouldn't say that there's any kind of we're expecting anything like dramatic abrupt changes. Of course, the pressures, like what I mentioned, are there and we are focused to manage them. Okay, fair enough. The second question was on the Thyssen Frame Agreement regarding the green hydrogen economy. Could you perhaps describe that a little bit more in detail? Is there some type of exclusivity in the deal for either of the partners? Is there any way to maybe quantify the opportunity of a, let's say, for electrolysis plant? Whether it be size of the plant, the capacity or otherwise, what type of a business this could be, let's say, midterm for you? I will not go into discussing the specifics of the agreement as such. We are seeing that overall the green hydrogen is still in early phases, but we are seeing that that's starting to happen. Discussions are starting to happen globally. Our aim is that we want to be early in the game. We want ensuring that we are working with the customers who are developing those. The indications that we have seen is that it can be good business for us. Is the product very kind of something that you already do on the fossil gas side, or is it something that you need to kind of invest some R&D to re-develop it further? Or how does it work from technical point of view? I mean, we are a leading company for the. How do you say? Well, let me just call it industrial gases and. Mm. Handling challenging gases. From that point of view, we do have the technologies, we have the bits. But of course, that's one of the points why we want to work with these customers to see that there are some that fit your requirements that would make sense more. All right. Thanks so much. That's all from me. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Skogman of Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, good afternoon. I would like to get an update on the competition authority process. How is the progress going there? Is there any other uncertainty than Brazil left? Do you also expect that everything will be sealed and done on April the first? Hey, I kindly ask that you to actually ask these questions from Valmet or there was also some comments maybe yesterday in Valmet's call or investor call. This process is Valmet led, so it's better that you speak to them, and I will not comment that. Okay. In the merger combination agreement, it says that you will pay a dividend to your shareholders of up to EUR 2. I think you're getting very close to this. I think your shareholders would really appreciate to understand whether this means that you will pay EUR 2 now when, you know, the world economy has normalized, you have had, you know, strong earnings, et cetera. Is there still some uncertainty why you would not pay EUR 2.0? This is really a matter of our board. I just maybe note that of course, they have asked for renewal of this authority and that they will have the authority to pay that up to EUR 2. That's all I can say. If the board supports EUR 2, then you will pay EUR 2 basically, I mean. Valmet doesn't have any majority in the board, to my understanding. It's in the interest of your shareholders to get out the dividend, of course. Sorry, what was the question? Yeah, I mean, it's in the interest of your shareholders to get out EUR 2 per share as an extra dividend. I mean, if it's a board decision, and unless Valmet has a majority in the board, it should be, you know, very clear that you will pay out EUR 2 because it's in the interest of your shareholders. I think that's the position most of the shareholder or the shareholders will have. I really don't have any comment to that. Yeah, there are no real reasons why you would not pay out EUR 2. Again, like I said, it is really a matter of our board to comment. Okay. This hydrogen freight agreement, was it with ThyssenKrupp and to what type of products in green hydrogen is it? What kind of applications? Oh, okay. Well, it's related to the facilities for producing green hydrogen, so electrolyzers, et cetera. Yeah. It's for ex-electrolyzers. It's not for logistics or- No, we are more. Other parts of the value chain. That's where we have the strongest point. If you think longer term, is there any reason you would not be big in logistics in green hydrogen if you build up new, you know, pipeline and new even infrastructure in Europe, for instance? You have products that are suitable for that or not? Yes. I think that our offering is strongest in the production side because of the historic reason. Of course, we are looking into the whole chain, but this is now where we're starting. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you. We currently have one further question in the queue. Just as a reminder to participants, if you do wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now. That next question comes from the line of Tomi Railo of DNB. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hi, Simo and Rita. This is Tomi from DNB. Question on the orders in the fourth quarter, really strong growth in the MRO. You mentioned that the comparison was easy, but still wondering if there was anything particular relating to any certain business or so. If you can comment on that. Okay, thanks. I think the one thing that is very, very visible is the good progress in North America that if you look at the year-on-year comparison, that is one big factor. That's not the only thing. I think we were seeing good progress in the MRO side and service side across the kind of geographies and businesses. It's North America really was the biggest positive contributor. Second question. Looking at the business and end-market sales, we can of course see that Chemicals and Gas came down last year as the markets were weak. Can you talk a little bit about the backlog and visibility if we should expect the Chemicals and Gas to return to sales growth this year? Or is growth based on Pulp and Paper and Oil as in last year? No, it's really when I talk about the chemical downstream and Chemicals or Oil, Gas and Chemicals. It's a mix of various kinds of Oil, Gas, Chemicals. Like I said, we are expecting that those projects will start to kind of materialize in the first half. Now, typically, there's lead time for delivering projects, so but I would expect that we should see also on the sales side some impact of that towards end of the year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have no further questions on the phone at this time, so I'll hand back to our speakers. Okay. Well, if that's all the questions we have this time, thank you for participating. Just a reminder that the AGM is coming up on March 22. Have a good weekend, everyone, and thank you for participating. Thank you.
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