Welcome and good morning to the Q3 interim results briefing for the Uponor Corporation. I'm here in the studio in Helsinki with our CFO, Minna, and I'm very happy to share the results of the Q3 for Uponor Corporation. Let me first introduce myself. I'm the new CEO, started in August 2021 this year. My background is from branded industry. I started my career at Kraft Jacobs Suchard. I worked several years for Levi Strauss, for Hasbro. In the last more than 12 years, I was working already in this industry at Grohe AG from 2015 on as their CEO. I'm very happy to join Uponor Corporation. It's a fantastic company, a fantastic brand, and I really like this because Uponor addresses solutions which address the two mega trends of the next decades, clean water solutions and energy efficient systems to reduce the CO2 emissions. I believe really Uponor is really well prepared to address what matters in the future. As you know, Uponor is a very global brand. We operate in 80 markets, highly attractive. We have a lot of factories, and we operate in 80 markets. I had a very first warm welcome, and I want to share with you what happened over the last two months at Uponor. You see here a few of the pictures. I visited five sites in the German, Swedish, and of course, Finnish factories to get to know the new product assortment and of course the people, the Uponorians, more than 4,000 working for this great company. I did a lot of sessions with my team. You see here the picture with my management team. I also did more than 50 interviews already with our management to get me up to speed with this new exciting endeavor with Uponor. Today is about to talk with you about the Q3 results. We are currently working on a new vision, mission and strategy for the company with my team to deliver sustainable growth and with which we will present on fourteenth of March at the Capital Markets Day. This session, questions of course are welcome, and please ask them at the end of the session. What are the highlights of Q3? Net sales were EUR 321.4 million, a growth of 6.8% and 8.1% in constant currency terms. It's up versus the comparable quarter last year. Of course, operating profit was down. It's EUR 38.1 million. It's a decline of 23.3%, but it is up versus a comparable 2019 Q3 of more than 20%. It's up the pre-corona time. Net sales and comparable operating profit increased in Building Solutions Europe. They had a really good quarter. However, net sales increased in Building Solutions North America and Uponor Infra, but they had some margin challenges. You see on this page really what the development on net sales. As I explained, it was a solid growth in Q3, beating last year's Q3, but also Q3 2019. On the operating profit, EUR 38.1 million, it's down versus the comparable quarter. You see in Q3 2019 it was EUR 31.1 million operating profit. It's more than 20% up versus the comparable 2019 Q3. Let's talk a little bit about the markets. As I said, 6.8% growth on a global level with the United States more or less flat. Germany had a close to double-digit growth. Finland was down 9.1% due to some challenges in supply chain and delivery. Sweden was up 15.7%. Holland had an enormous growth. Canada was up double-digit, as well as Denmark. Poland had a tough quarter because they had a great project, a big project in a comparable quarter last year. Norway was up double-digit and Spain was almost on last year's level. But I think it's more important to look at the year-to-date number to give a clear picture where we are. On a cumulative base, the company is up, or sales are up, in total terms 15%. United States, 14.8%. Germany up double-digit. Finland stable. Sweden is up 19.1%. Canada growing more than 40%. A lot of the key markets here are up in double-digit terms. The only market negative is Poland, again driven by a very strong project we had in Q3 last year. Overall, a very solid growth after a corona year, 2020. Let's go a bit deeper into the divisions. As I said, Europe had a very strong Q3 and increased their sales 13%, very, very solid, and the operating profit grew as well. I think this was very much driven by a few markets really doing well, and this is Germany and Holland in particular. We drove a very successful program reducing our OpEx, so improvements in operations and operational excellence is really driving the profit. Last but not least, also there were a lot of innovation launched at the last ISH, so we're coming out with a better mix of existing product and innovation. Also, the acquisition of Capricorn was a big event in August, and this will give us a much broader base in our Eastern European business and also in our product portfolio. Now coming to the US US was also up slightly versus previous year, but had a big hit in profitability. They really suffered from raw material price increases and also from supply chain issues in the United States. The demand, however, is still very strong in the residential markets. It's both in US and also in Canada. The decrease in operating profit was due to higher cost levels and overall cost inflation together with supply shortages. Our number one priority now is really to get back to sustainable growth and stabilize the supply chain. I must say, however, also the US has been slightly up versus the comparable 2019 Q3, but we continue to work on our customer service levels to get back to sustainable growth. On the Infra side, of course, the raw material prices, no surprise, have impacted our profitability most. Net sales have, however, increased, especially in Sweden and Norway. Also, the demand here, as in Europe, as in United States, is very, very stable. But the price increases we have done could not mitigate all the impacts of higher input costs. We have announced further price increases, but of course, due to the structure of this business, raw material price increases have impacted this business more than Building Solutions in Europe and the Americas. However, we continue to work on new solutions, drive higher margins, and you see on this picture here, service solutions. This is a project we've implemented in Linköping last year, which will give us a better margin position in the future. The comparison versus last year was also diluted to a large design solution project in Poland. What's new on the agenda? One topic really, as I mentioned in the beginning, is very important, and I think it's Uponor is very much positioned for the future, is moving our sustainability agenda forward. In Q3 2021, Uponor Infra launched its first sewer pipe utilizing renewable material. We do the same next year in Q1 2022, and we launch our first PEX pipe utilizing renewable material in Europe. The interesting thing is here, these products are the first results of a collaboration with Borealis, and they are based on replacing a significant share of fossil raw materials by renewable alternatives. We are the first mover in the markets, and you see here on the next page what the impact is. On the Infra side, the impact could be up to 70% lower carbon footprint in comparison to our traditional UltraRib 2 product. The impact could even higher, up to 86%, the impact on lower carbon footprint compared to standard PEX pipe in the market. I think this is one of the great initiatives which makes me very confident for the future that we are, with our portfolio, on the right track. With this, I would like to hand over to the financial statements, and Minna, please. Thank you, Michael. Good morning from me as well. I'm Minna Yrjönmäki, CFO, and we'll take a little bit deeper look into the financial side of the quarter and year to date. Starting back and looking at year to date on our net sales where we stand, as already mentioned, we have a 15% growth year to date on the sales. This continues to be very good in North Building Europe. North American Infra in the third quarter were a little bit more moderate. When we look at year to date, it is still good, solid double-digit growth for all three divisions. What we have seen in the last quarter is that as volumes continue to be, we are not able to deliver everything, and we do see that the price impact is coming, starting to come nicely through, but raw material prices continue to be quite volatile. Looking at the gross profit on the next slide. Gross profit, of course, on absolute terms here has decreased from last year level and but on the gross profit margin, we are continuing on a fairly steady good level at 35.8%. Gross profit is now challenged by both the supply chain constraints as well as the continued raw material prices. Raw material has continued to increase in the third quarter. Our price increases are being pushed through, but that is something that will need some more time to recover further. Further on, we had the supply issues then, of course, causing also some other disturbances and cost related items that are stressing the margin level slightly. Moving on to the operating profit bridge. On year-to-date level, EUR 133 million comparable operating profit. We see here the bridge against last year that the input cost change is clearly a negative item. The biggest impact still over on a year-to-date basis is the good volume growth, especially during the first half, but also continuing in the third quarter. The volume growth and the price increases then, of course, also impacting here the second change column. We continue to see savings coming through from the OpEx program, so EUR 3 million in the quarter and this on year-to-date basis is bringing a good benefit here. In the other column here, we then see the impact from some of the cost side and overheads. Overheads increasing against last year. Now considering that, at this time last year, Q3, we were still very strongly under the pandemic, so a lot of cost was both quite on a very low level and then together with what we've seen this year with the volume increasing, this actually from the overhead cost increases quite a lot is also sort of volume dependent. We have sales commissions, customer bonuses, and we have also an increase in our headcount, which is coming through in higher labor costs, just to supply, to be able to supply customers and respond to the higher demand. Moving on to the Operational Excellence Programme, a bit more detail, as we continue this until the end of first half next year. During the quarter, the savings were recorded EUR 3 million, and since the start of the program, we are now at EUR 18 million. A very good and solid progress and continues to bring the benefits from that. Further on to the balance sheet side and cash. On the operative cash flow, we are at EUR 128 million of operative cash flow at the end of the third quarter. This is slightly lower than last year, and the impact against last year is coming from increase in our net working capital. Clearly, especially we see increases in the inventory levels. What we discussed before is that our inventories have been quite depleted over this, the very strong demand that we've seen. We continue to, as said for some of the supply issues, we cannot deliver everything to our customers and capacity constraints have also been causing issues. Here, we have been able to start to increase the inventories, and hopefully this will help us to serve our customers better going forward. Also, other net working capital items are slightly on a high level than last year. Another reason is that this year we have done a bit more investments than last year. Last year also, due to the pandemic, we had a bit of a investment or CapEx stoppage. On that next page, a little bit more on where we stand with the investments. We have EUR 27 million of net investments year to date this year, and in the third quarter, we were at EUR 9 million. Of course, we continue on regular maintenance and efficiency improvements. On the growth side, we are investing into capacity, especially in North America. This is bringing this up against, especially against last year. Still, a bit more on the cash flow, on the net cash or net interest-bearing debt that we had until the start of this year. Now, in the last two quarters, we've had a net cash position, so a very good trend, EUR 101 million improvement on that position since a year ago, so very strong. Continuing very strong. We had a net cash of EUR 27 million at the end of the quarter, and also our gearing was at -5.6% at the end of the quarter, and the average also getting very, very low to the 2.5%. We have done some changes in the third quarter. We repaid EUR 100 million of our external debt, so just lightening up the balance sheet a bit. We still continue with a strong and a strong balance sheet and a strong cash balance. Thank you. That was the part for the financials and back to Michael for the outlook. Yeah. Outlook 2021. Again, we compare ourselves now versus a very strong quarter last year with very low material prices the year before and, of course, a catch-up effect from Q2 2019 and 2020. Outlook for the year is very much driven from a very strong demand side. The builder confidence has recovered despite all these supply-related headwinds, and that's a bit of a surprise. Builders still remain very, very positive. However, they also have to wrestle with the very high material prices and also, let's face it, in the Eurozone, we have a 13-year high inflation rate at the moment. I think the whole construction industry is, on one hand, very positive. On the other hand, we all wrestle with these constraints in raw material and supply chain. I give you, as an example here, the picture of Europe's biggest market, Germany, where the German builders labor and inflation challenge continue. It shows that this really continues, and the number one issue they really face is finding material and labor, and this is more than an obstacle to find new projects. This is a little bit systematic, and you see how sharply this has risen over the last six months, which we haven't seen really for a decade or so. This is a pretty new situation to the whole industry. Of course, this also affects our performance. This is why I say we need to get back to sustainable growth and stabilize our supply chain and our service levels. In the US It's quite similar. Also there, the construction grew further, and there are signs of stabilizing and the most forward-looking indicator, the architecture billing index is also very positive. Also in the US, we see continuous strong demand. The residential construction expanded despite all the supply chain challenges. Therefore demand, the underlying demand is not the issue. What is our market outlook for Q4? While the underlying demand is expected to remain healthy, the downside risk and limitations may persist. Builder supply chain challenges, a lack of skilled labor, and also construction material price inflation, which I believe is the biggest challenge for Q4 and maybe also for first half of next year. The guidance statement for 2021 stays stable as updated June 11th, excluding the impact of currencies, Uponor expects its net sales and comparable operating profit to increase from last year, and the increase indicates a growth of 2.5% or more. We talked a bit about the outlook for the company and for the strategy, and I work with my team currently on a new vision, mission, and strategy, and we will hold a Capital Markets Day and present our strategy 14th of March here in Helsinki. Thank you very much, and we are now open for any question. I see the first. I can take this one. This is from Markku Moilanen, and this is, I think, Nordea? From OP. OP Banks. Have you seen any stabilization in the logistical bottleneck, or is this still a big challenge in Q4? Yes, we have seen some stabilization. When I look at the OTIF numbers to our customers, it has a bit improved over the last month, and we are working very hard to get the service levels back. I doubt we get back to normal level before beginning of next year. Here is a question from Mattias from Danske Bank. In North America, revenue was essentially flat in year-on-year comparison. Did you see any de-stocking among your clients, or did you see this level sustainable for now? We don't have detailed level on the stocks of our customers, so no deep insight. My impression, however, is there is continuous strong demand here, and usually we don't have a very big order book we build on. These products basically didn't result into big stock levels in the past. Therefore, I think the answer is here, we estimate a stable level. The question is from Tommy Ilmoni from Carnegie: Can you please explain why the sales growth in North America was so weak considering that you have increased your prices? It's evident that your volumes are sharply down. Is this because of supply chain challenges? Can we assume that your order book is sharply up? Yes, we have seen that the order book has increased. Still our biggest challenge in the United States was to fulfill demand. We had a lot of constraints from raw material supply, and this is why we now continue to work to get our order book turned into sales. This again is a question from Mattias from Danske Bank: Is there something you would like to change in Uponor? What would you do differently? I think this is the master question everybody is asking in the company and probably out. As I said, I think Uponor is a fantastic company because I would say it's in the epicenter of what matters in the future. We have fantastic solutions to provide clean water and also helping our customers to reduce their CO2 emissions. Therefore, I think we have a great potential. This was actually the attraction why I joined this company. We will announce anything further at the Capital Markets Day. That's it for now. Yeah. There are, I see, no more questions. Thank you very much for the session and have a good day. Thank you. Thank you.
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