Welcome everyone to this presentation of Nordic Waterproofing's second quarter 2023. Let me start with pointing out that this meeting is being recorded for everyone, and participating names are visible. With that, let me introduce our CEO, Martin Ellis, and ask you to start the presentation. Thank you very much, Palle. Welcome, everybody. Very glad to have you listening in. We have had a very good quarter in Installation Services. We've achieved a further improvement in EBIT. We had a mixed performance in Products & Solutions, which some areas performing, very well and other areas having some difficulties, and we obviously go into detail on that. Let me also remind you that we had strong comparables. Last year was a record year, and the second quarter of 2022 was an extremely strong quarter for us. Moving on here, we have an all-time high in sales in the quarter, and we've significantly improved our cash flow. The net sales increase of 3% is due to acquisitions we've made mostly last year, 8% sales increase due to acquisitions. We also have a 4% currency effect from the weak SEK, and we have a negative organic sales development of 9%, where volume is -14% and price +5%. We still get a positive effect from our sales price increases basically in the last year. EBITDA decreased accordingly to SEK 186 million compared to SEK 216 million last year. EBIT decreased to SEK 143 million compared to SEK 180 million last year. Cash flow from operating activities was SEK 157 million compared to SEK 38 million last year. A significant jump. Net debt now stands at SEK 1.13 billion compared to SEK 912 at the end of last year. As you're aware, the end of year is always a low net debt level. We basically see a good development of our net debt at the present time. Moving on to some comments. Demand has been impacted by a slight slowdown in commercial new builds, but we've seen renovation holding up quite well, and the residential new build is depressed, as you know, and that is a relatively limited area of exposure for us. In our bitumen-based waterproofing operations, we had a stable quarter in sales. A mid-single-digit drop, a slight drop in volume, which we have compensated by price increases, which are still carried forward. In EPDM products, we had weaker sales. That's one of the two areas where we have a drop in both in sales and operating income. This is driven by increased competition and lower prices. As you might recall, we already had that effect in the last quarter, and there's no significant change, I would say, to the picture compared to the first quarter. In prefab elements, which is the other problem area we have, there we have a high exposure to residential new build, which has had an impact on our sales volume in Denmark and positive developments actually in Norway and especially Finland. We have appointed a new CEO for this business for our Taasinge Elementer group. Our green infrastructure had another strong quarter. The roofing business in Finland and Norway had slightly lower sales and strong performance in the two other countries, Sweden and Denmark, basically. Our order book for Installation Services continues to be strong, on par with the previous year in Finland and Denmark, which are our main markets, and slightly weaker in Norway, where we have smaller operations. Moving on to the next page. Operating profit and gross profit, some more color on that. Somewhat lower margins compared to the very strong Q2 2022 in the bitumen-based waterproofing businesses. Lower volumes and decreasing margins compared to the historically high levels in the EPDM synthetic rubber waterproofing business. Let me remind you that we had extremely high margins last year, and we are now returning to somewhat more normal levels, if you put it in the longer-term historical perspective. Lower volumes and operational challenges still remaining in our prefab wood elements business. Installation services in Finland improved both gross profit and EBIT, and somewhat lower results in Norway, which just mentioned. In our Danish franchise network, we actually have seen a record EBIT levels, which is obviously quite remarkable in the current environment. Contingency measures, cost control have been implemented in our operations to mitigate the consequence of the negative volume development. We think we are up to date in that respect, obviously ready to reduce further if that was required in the future. A stronger cash flow from operations in the quarter, mainly driven by improved working capital control. We continue to see slightly deflated costs for our input materials. I would guess we would speculate that this trend will continue in the coming two quarters. In a high interest environment, obviously, we have sharpened the focus on our debt level. You've seen the cash flow improving. We have adjusted multiples in case we make acquisitions, but obviously, we have a negative effect of high interest rates on our financing costs. Palle will get into a bit more detail on that. Moving on, Palle, please, up to you to give us some more details. Yes, thank you very much, Martin. As we said, net sales increased to almost SEK 1.3 billion, being our single highest quarter, sales in a quarter, and it is driven by acquisitions, with 8% in currency 4% and price increases of 5%, while volume were down 14%. EBITDA decreased SEK 30 million to SEK 186 million, and the margin decreased to 14.4% versus 17.2%. On a rolling twelve basis, the EBITDA margin now stands at 11.2%. Looking more into the income statement here, we can see the gross margin for the quarter was 27%, compared to a very good 30.2% last year, and EBIT margin in the quarter was 11% versus 14.4% a year ago. on a rolling twelve basis, we are now at 7.4% on. the increased interest rates had a negative impact of our net finance item, as you can see here. Looking then into the balance sheet, we continue to have a solid balance sheet, and it allows us to do selective acquisitions that we can find in this environment. the interest-bearing net debt increased to almost SEK 1.1 billion, and it from the beginning of the year, which is logical from our seasonally weaker cash flow in the first half of the year, and also that we distributed the dividend of SEK seven per share in early May here. The equity asset ratio is unchanged, exactly the same as a year ago, and the net debt over EBITDA is at 2.3 times, which is higher than a year ago, but it remains well below our covenants in the financing agreement. ROAS, as mentioned, went down to 11.4 versus an all-time high last year of 17.9. We have an increase in capital employed, both from higher cost and prices, and the weaker SEK, Swedish krona has some impact, and also acquisitions contribute. Mainly, the decrease in ROAS is driven by lower operating result. We've seen an improved cash flow from operations up to SEK 437 million in the latest rolling twelve versus SEK 215 a year ago. Cash conversion up at a good 89% versus 37% a year ago. Yeah, the improved cash flow we've seen is mainly driven by the improved changes in working capital, where inventory is one component. We continue to focus on inventory reduction and as well, monitoring our receivables in the current environment here. Looking into our two segments, in Products & Solutions, we had net sales of almost exactly SEK one billion, down 2% versus last year, where organic development was -8%, consisted of price +4% and volume -12%. This is an area where we haven't done that much acquisition, so they contributed with 2%, and impact from currency was 3%. We have the development in the different countries, maybe apart from the numbers, point out that in Denmark, where we have a negative organic development, we can say that our bitumen-based waterproofing membranes business is contributing more than the prefabricated wooden elements that has a higher decrease in Denmark. In Norway, we can also just note that that's the market where we have the currency against us, so we have a negative currency impact. Otherwise, the weak SEK is helping us in other markets. On a rolling 12 basis, we're almost at SEK 3.3 billion in turnover. EBITDA decreased to SEK 265 million versus SEK 212 a year ago. Operating profit, EBIT, down to SEK 132. I think we've been through the reasons earlier in Martin's comments for why we have this decrease. Moving on to Installation Services, where we had an all-time high sales in the quarter of SEK 350 million, an increase with 20%. Organic development was -11%, where price was +7% and volume -19%. Larger impact from acquisitions here with 24%, as well as currency effects of 7%. EBITA increased to SEK 32 million over SEK 16 a year ago. Operating profit as well increased to SEK 22 over SEK 9. The margin, EBITA margin increased to 9.1% over 5.6% a year ago, and for the latest 12 months, the margin now stands at 8.2% over 3.8% a year ago. Our activities in Finland, where we have the largest activity, improved both gross profit and EBIT, while we saw a reduced result in our Norwegian Installation Services business. Also, we could note very good result improvement from our Danish franchise network. With that, I'll pass it back to you, Martin. Yeah. Thank you very much, Palle. Just to sum it up, as you can see, from our targets, we have achieved sales growth. You can argue, of course, that in volume terms, we are slightly down, and this is against the backdrop of obviously falling demand in the construction industry in general. I would reiterate that we believe that with the exception of SealEco, the EPDM business, we have probably slightly gained market share in the majority of our markets. A good situation there. In terms of profitability, we have now dropped below the 13% threshold, so we haven't checked that box. But I would say we're still at a level which historically we have seen before, and we certainly plan to improve that ratio again in the coming quarters. Capital structure, as Palle mentioned, remains strong. We have a acquisition pipeline, I would say, which is a bit less than we had a year ago. We are not in a hurry to obviously to take on additional debt at current interest rate levels, but if there are strategic opportunities, of course, we will realize those. In terms of dividend policy, there are no news. As Palle mentioned, we've distributed the dividend earlier this year of more than 50% of our net profit, and we obviously plan to continue that in the future. With that, we very much look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, Martin. With that, we open up for questions. For those in the meeting, if you want to ask a question, please raise your hand in the meeting. You can also send the question in the Q&A feed in here, or if you're on phone, press star five to raise your hand. We have the first question coming from Max Bæck. I have allowed you on the mic, and you need to unmute yourself to ask your question, Max. Yes. Good morning, Martin and Palle. Thank you for the presentation. Yes, a very quick question. If you can remind us about the exposure in the installation service segment. Notice that in terms of volume, it's down more than the product and solutions. Do you have a higher exposure to new build in the installation service segment than compared to the group as a whole? Yeah, that's, it's a bit complex. It's not something we follow precisely because our Installation Services business now is quite diverse, as you know. I would say the exposure is probably similar to Products & Solutions, sorry. The only exception is the prefab element business, which is highly exposed to new build, which comes into the Products & Solutions segment, but I would say overall it's quite comparable. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Sorry. Sorry. We have the next question coming from Sofia Sörling from Carnegie. I've opened up your microphone, Sofia. Sorry. I think, Sofia, you changed your mind and took back the question. Do we have any other person wanting to ask a question? Yes. Sofia, I see you raised your hand, but you should be able to unmute and ask your question. I see you still have the hand, and I've unmuted your microphone, yeah. Maybe we take your question in a separate call later on, and I'm not sure exactly why, because you can't unmute and ask your question. Otherwise, Martin, we have no further questions. Okay, well, thank you very much all for calling in, and looking forward to our next quarterly call in, I guess, late October. 26th October. Thank you very much.
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