Hello, welcome to this Nordic Lights webinar. My name is Tapio Pesola, and I will be hosting this event. With me today I have the company CEO, Tom Nordström, as well as the company CFO, Ann-Louise Brännback. In a moment, they will be going through the results and developments of the past 6 months, as well as the full year 2022. They will also be sharing their insights on market developments, as well as the company's guidance for this ongoing year. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session, and you may already start posting your questions by using the chat functionality right below the video screen. I think that's it, thank you for joining us today, and now I give the floor to Tom. Thank you, Tapio, and welcome to our webinar. Today's program will be, we'll start with a brief introduction to Nordic Lights. We will continue with a financial performance from last year, going to some update about our strategic actions, talk about the market, and then finally, about the financials and ESG targets. In brief, about Nordic Lights, what we are doing, we are a supplier of lighting solutions for heavy-duty equipment. Heavy-Duty equipment means work machines, like excavators, tractors, forestry machines, and so on. We are a global player. We have production units in Finland and China, head office and R&D located in Finland, sales companies or offices in Finland, China, North America, Brazil, and Vietnam, and Germany. We are recognized as a premium player in the market. We work with both OEM customers, meaning that we supply products, which are a component mounted on the equipment when they produce them. We have also a considerable aftermarket position. We have last year achieved a revenue of EUR 82 million, EUR 13 million adjusted EBITA, meaning we have that means that we have grown our market share additionally from 2021. We estimate that our market share in 2022 is approximately 8% in our core addressable market. We have over 400 customers around the world, from small to large ones, and are totally approximately 300 employees in our company. Over to the financial performance. A quick brief review and key takeaways before Ann-Louise Brännback will go deeper into the numbers. Despite the increased uncertainty in the market, we succeeded to grow our revenue with good profitability. Also, cash flow was very good during 2022. Full year net sales landed at the high end of our guidance, we significantly also improved our profitability due to the mitigations actions that we will describe later on. Important milestone was the listing on the Nasdaq First North in July last year. Uncertainty in the market continued, there are still strong Long-Term growth drivers there. The market demand is expected to be a little bit lower in 2023 for Heavy-Duty equipment, but it will remain on a historical high level. The Long-Term outlook from our customers remains fairly positive also in 2023. over to Ann-Louise. Thank you. Nordic Lights had profitable growth in 2022. We followed up our growth of 52% in 2021 with a 24% growth in 2022 and landed at EUR 82 million. We had a 45% growth in H1. We had a 6% growth in H2. The comparison figure for H2 is on a higher level compared to what it was for H1. There were more uncertainties in the market, and we also saw customer optimizing their stock levels. Our gross margin increased by 34% to EUR 29 million. We can really show the result of our mitigation actions, an active pricing, cost management, and an increased production efficiency. Our EBITA margin increased by 50% to EUR 13 million or 16.3%. The volume increase and the improved gross margins are the factors behind this. We, of course, continue to strive towards the Long-Term target of 18%. To conclude, our business model really support growth and profitability. We understand our customers and their requirements. We have a recurring flow business and sticky customer relationships. We have a strong R&D that bring value add to our customers. We have a global production footprint with an increasing automation level, and we have a strong sourcing and a scalable business. We have a significant business in all regions, and we had good growth across all of them in 2022. We had a very strong growth in Agriculture. We ramped up new business successfully. We also had good growth in construction. This was driven by infrastructure business and projects in energy sector. Our mining business was flat in 2022, there is a good underlying development there. We had high deliveries in H1, in H2, we saw customer optimizing their stock levels. To conclude, we have, during 2022, really strengthened the business portfolio and the balance in it. We are very happy to show a very strong operating cash flow, EUR 11 million. The strong result in combination with decreased net working capital is the factors behind this. We also improved our Return on Capital Employed to 63%. We got gross listing proceeds of EUR 50 million in July. This together with the strong cash flow led to record low leverage figure of 0.2. Our dividend proposal to the AGM is EUR 0.12 per share, or 32% of net profit adjusted with amortization of goodwill. This is fully in line with our dividend policy. Thank you. Back to you, Tom. Thank you. Let's continue with an update regarding our strategic actions. To give you the, let's say the overall picture of it, we are focusing on growth and profitability in our operations. The focus areas for our growth is to continuously grow our core business in the core addressable market, the five end user segments, and also to speed up and accelerate the growth in the aftermarket. Continuous development of our operation is key to improve profitability and maintain our competitiveness. In addition to that, we will also explore further opportunities to expand into new markets, end user segments or adjacent product categories, and we will also review acquisitions as growth accelerators. More details to follow. Uh, regarding the core business, uh, what we have done in our core businesses is to continue the successful ramp up of new business across all end user segments and geographical markets. We launched a new, uh, driving light, a new-- the next generation of, of our SCULPTOR light, and we have strengthened significantly our position in the agriculture sector, which we can continue to, to build on in the future. Also, uh, R&D is, uh, uh, delivering new products and, uh, into, in, into our portfolio, and especially, uh, regarding high volume work light products, uh, which we expect to, to grow, uh, a lot also in the future. Growth in the after market is, uh, uh, also an, an important, uh, part of, of our growth journey. We have opened new distributors on key mining markets. We have increased promotion and marketing activities also digitally to tell our and reach our end users with what we can provide them. To help them to improve the productivity of the work machine and ensure safe operations. We have strengthened and added additional resources to our aftermarket organization to be able to handle and achieve the growth targets. Regarding new markets, we have completed a screening project to identify new adjacent product or market segments. We have also screened and have done a first brief evaluation of possible M&A targets. Action planning for the next step are ongoing during the first 1/4, this is something we can come back to later on this year. Continuous development of our operations has always been key in our company. Very important has this last year been the mitigation activities to compensate for inflation and other price increases. We have been able to adjust prices, our prices to offset the impact. Furthermore, we have also increased the usage of automation in our assembly processes to be more cost efficient. We have reduced material and component costs thanks to higher volume. The delivery performance we have successfully brought back to the target level, which is reducing our shipping costs. Further potential for 2023 that we will continue to push for is to have increased collaboration with our suppliers to achieve total cost advantages. We will continue our automation journey. Next step will be the testing and final assembly. We strive for local supply to in line with our ESG targets, and that will also bring stability to our sourcing process and shipments into... Shorten the shipping time to our production units. More long term, we are working on a fully automized One-Step assembly of work lights, and are also improving the process for manufacturing our the driving lights. During 2023, we will also certify our health and safety processes according to the ISO 45001 standard. Some news from the market. This 1 page you have seen before if you have followed us, which shows the Long-Term drivers and the underlying growth drivers in our market. The strong demand, I said earlier, for heavy-duty equipment is expected to continue on a high level, even though that we had very, very high growth numbers the last 2 years. That what is driving that is the infrastructure development, especially. Growing number of lights per vehicle is perhaps the coming years the most important. The awareness of safety and is driving that, but also other changes in the market like the autonomous vehicles that will soon be launched to the market. Also, the LED penetration is going to increase. There are still approximately 20% of halogen or 20% of the market are halogen lights, and these are expected to be replaced by LED technology the coming years. With a higher price for the LED, that is, will also increase the market value. To summarize it will be somehow weaker markets for Heavy-Duty equipment, but thanks to the underlying growth drivers, we expect to have a fairly strong demand also in 2023. However, the macroeconomic uncertainty and supply chain constraints are still there. Not as severe as they was 1 year to 2 years ago. The situation has improved, and it's more stability in the supply chain. To continue with the Long-Term financial targets and the outlook, we continue with our Long-Term targets to have an average annual 10% organic net sales growth over the time. Profitability target for EBITDA to be above 18%, the dividend policy remains the same to be 30%-40% of the net profit adjusted for amortization and goodwill. Leverage below 2, which we are well below today. Our guidance and outlook for 2023 is that the net sales is expected to rein at approximately previous year's level. Q1 and Q2 is expected to be below Q1 and Q2 last year. The reason for that is that there were a peak last year with a lot of delays that we succeeded to catch up. It was a boosted time of last year that we will not see today when the supply chain is more stable. Full year 2023 adjusted EBITA% is expected to be above previous year. We have defined also our ESG targets. Our mission is to enable safe operations of heavy duty machinery, which is such an ESG target. We strive to develop products that is improving the safety and reducing emissions when using work machines. We also focus on our own operations to reduce the energy consumption and bring down emissions. During 2024, we have the target to be carbon neutral in our Finnish factory. We continuously develop energy solutions, and that is what we are highlighting and promoting in our offering to the market to support our customers to also fulfill their ESG targets. To summarize the core strengths of Nordic Lights Group, it is our market position and brand. We are well-known in our business. We have a broad customer base all over the world. A recurring business from major OEMs and an aftermarket business as well. Global operations which can support our business. We invest in technology and development to bring new innovations to the market and optimize our operations to be competitive. ESG objectives are high priority on our agenda. We have very strong performance indicator historically. Good growth perspectives from the future in our core addressable markets. In addition to that, as shown earlier, a lot of opportunities in adjacent markets or end user segments. Last but not least, we have a very committed and professional personnel who know the business very well. They understand the customers and the need of our customers. I want to take the opportunity now also to thank our employees for the contribution during 2022, which has helped us to achieve this strong result. Thank you very much. We have come to the end of our presentation and are happy to take some questions. Yes. Thank you, Tom and Ann-Louise. As Tom mentioned, there is still a chance to send more questions in. We already have a number here waiting. Using the chat functionality, you can continue posting the questions. Actually, the first question, while you do not yet report on a quarterly basis, the first question is actually about the developments within the second 1/2. From Nikko Ruokangas and SEB, how did your net sales and gross margin develop within the second 1/2 comparing Q3 to Q4? In 2022? Yes, in 2022. Yes. We saw a gradually pickup from during the second 1/2 year. There were a lot of inventory adjustments, as Ann-Louise said, after a lot of a strong demand and a little bit over-ordering in beginning of 2022, and we succeeded to catch up delays as well. Since that stock adjustment, we have seen gradually again that our customers have their inventory levels where they should be and demand is increasing again. Thank you for that. There was also another question regarding. Mm-hmm inventory levels. From Nikko Ruokangas, SEB, you mentioned that your customers optimized inventory levels leading to decline in mining sales in the second 1/2. Was this the only reason for the decline? Is the customer inventory reduction now over or is it expected to still affect 2023? In mining specifically, was that the only reason for the decline? There is a small impact also from the Russia business that we have closed down that was mostly into mining. As Tom said, we saw order intake picking up now during the end of the year. We think it's over now. Thank you. Another more detailed question. Tax rate, from Caj-Anders Skog. Tax rate was high in the second 1/2. What was the reason for this, and what is your guidance for 2023 in terms of the tax rate? we don't have a guidance. Of use. There are technical reasons behind it. Some interest that we have not deducted to be able to transfer enough money up to the top company and be able to pay dividend. We will take actions next year to not have this impacting next year. Thank you. We have a few questions in the lines, again, waiting still more time to ask new questions by using the chat functionality. Looking maybe this 1 next from Caj-Anders Skog. Looking from the outside, the slowdown should be visible in the construction and forestry segments. However, you reported strong sales growth in these segments in the second 1/2. In contrast, sales to mining customers declined year on year, despite the very strong outlook for mining customers. He's looking at the industries. What is the reason for this? Inventory cycles or is this lighting market different from the underlying machine market? If I start with the second question about the mining side, as said, it's mainly the inventory. We have a strong sales also in the aftermarket and a lot of our distributors built up the inventories because of the risk of not having anything to sell because of the supply chain constraints. When they realized during first 1/2 or end of or first 1/2 of 2022 that it's more stable and we were also able to catch up all the delays, they adjusted their inventories. Regarding the construction side, it's quite common that when someone talk about construction, people think about residential building, but that's only a small part of the constructions business. Where the majority of the work machines are used are in infrastructure projects. That's where the big machines are used and Nordic Lights is overrepresented there. There's almost an increasing demand now also with this energy, there are, sort of, changes in how to produce energies that will boost further also this part of the construction business. All the windmills that needs to be produced and so on. Thank you. Hopefully that clarified that question. Maybe another question from Caj-Anders Skog again. Do you have any large customer projects in the pipeline that will boost growth beyond 2023? Now looking at the even longer cycle. Yes. Totally, in our CRM system we have approximately 60 opportunities that we are working on for future new business. There are projects to be expected also in the future? Absolutely. Okay. Another 1 from Caj-Anders Skog, regarding the things you mentioned about the growth prospects: What adjacent segments are you considering? Would this expansion demand an acquisition? The... Both alternatives is possible into some adjacent segments, especially if you talk adjacent products, product segments, to further strengthen our position in our core addressable markets. As has been said, already during last year, we will this year and what we are... I also said that we have started, we'll review M&A opportunities to accelerate to develop organically new products take a long time and also to develop new end user markets. The... To mention some adjacent segments that could be interesting, product segments, warning lights, and end user segments, large area lighting, emergency vehicles are 2 that we are interested to explore. Okay. Thank you. Maybe a couple of questions still, just from me. Ann-Louise, you mentioned that You expect to continue to improve your profitability in 2023. Where do you see the biggest potential? You listed, Tom listed several items there, but- Mm ... where's the biggest potential? I mean, it's very important that we continue our active pricing to our customers. To collaborate with our suppliers and ensure we have good prices. We will continue with the increased automation level in production. I think those 3 are the most important. Thank you. Finally, Tom, I think this will be the last question. What are you focusing on at the beginning of the year now? It's already February, but... 1 thing we focus on already was already mentioned by Ann-Louise, of course, the, let's say, activities to mitigate impact from the inflation, and general operational matters to make sure that we follow our time schedule when we're developing new products and introducing new products and are able to follow the time schedules. Important is also to take the next steps with what was already highlighted with activities to open up things in adjacent segments. That is also a priority to get the such projects to move forward. Okay. There was a new question now from Nikko Ruokangas, 1 more. SEB, what was net working capital to sales? sorry. What was net working capital to sales end of 2022, and how would you expect this to develop in 2023? There's another question as well. net working capital to sales. I don't have the-. Do we need to get? I don't have the number in my head now. For sure we continue to work on the net working capital and especially on inventory levels to ensure we have a good flow there. Yeah. A second question. Why did the gross margin not grow sequentially in the second 1/2 despite pricing actions? Is it from H1 to H2, the gross margin development? Do you want- There are many things that has an impact on the gross margin. The product mix, customer mix and a negative impact which we did have, was what was mentioned about the after market business. Mm-hmm ... and the distributors adjusting the stock levels. Gross margin is higher in the after market. Mm-hmm ... and especially in the mining, which was also highlighted. These fluctuations in the Mm-hmm ... in the product mix and customer mix has from month to month, an impact and give us some variations there. Thank you. Those were all the questions for now. That concludes the Q&A. Thank you for answering all the questions. I will now hand over to Tom for any final remarks. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to thank you for following us and taking the time to listen to our full year presentation. Thank you.
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