It's 10:00 A.M. Swedish time, so welcome everybody, and to this Webex following the Nordic Waterproofing Third Quarter Interim Report. We're gonna go through this presentation, and after that, there will be time for questions to be asked. I'll let you know the details about how to do that when we get there. But let me start with the presentation and introducing our President and CEO, Martin Ellis. So Martin, please go ahead and take us through the slides too. Yeah. Thank you very much, Palle. Welcome all. Thank you very much for participating. So we're happy to report on our third quarter, which showed improved profitability compared to last year on stable turnover. Next. We have, obviously, as you're aware, had a recent change in ownership. Late last week, Kingspan announced the acquisition of a further 26.5% of the shares of our company, and with the previously owned shares, Kingspan now has 62.6% at this point in time. I would like to say that we are, as management, we are very happy about this step because it obviously clarifies the situation, and we very much look forward to being part of the Kingspan family in the hopefully near future. And we believe that this is very good news for Nordic Waterproofing, and that there's a number of synergies which we both Kingspan and ourselves can benefit from. The increased ownership by Kingspan at this point doesn't trigger any obligation to make a mandatory public offer, since that's been already done earlier this year. The change in ownership structure also doesn't affect our listing on Nasdaq Stockholm at this point, and we will continue to be listed on the Mid Cap list. You can also see on the right-hand side the present situation of the minority shareholders. And I think we won't go into the details of each line, but it is clear that there's a number of minority shareholders still remaining in our share ownership. Next. So back to our third quarter net sales. Slightly down, minus 2% organic development, and also a negative currency effect, and a slight effect from acquisitions, but they're basically stable. EBITDA increased to SEK 177 million, up from 159 last year. EBIT increased by a slightly high amount, to SEK 140 million, compared to 115 last year. Cash flow from operating activities was SEK 101 million, compared to SEK 149 million. I may remind you that last year we had a very significant inventory decrease, which explains the difference. Net debt stands at SEK 815 million, and it was a year ago SEK 985 million, and at the end of the last year, it was SEK 749 million. So in all likelihood, we would expect to have a significantly lower debt level at the end of this year. Next. A few comments on the Q3 demand. Obviously, the one of the key drivers of our results, and it is impacted by a slowdown in commercial new build, which is nothing new, but it persists. Renovation, we see as stable, while residential new build continued weak in most of our geography. Bitumen-based waterproofing operations are stable in Sweden and Denmark, with obviously good profitability, and the market situation is significantly more challenging in Finland and also to some extent in Norway. Sales for EPDM products, synthetic rubber, are slightly below last year, but margins are slightly higher. Prefab elements, wood-based, which has a bigger exposure to residential new build than the rest of our business, had nevertheless positive development in sales on the Danish market, while it was negative in Norway. Profitability remains unsatisfactory, but we have accelerated our restructuring programs, and we do believe that we might reach a break-even situation next year. Our green infrastructure business had a flat development in sales, but operating results clearly improved over last year. Installation Services, last but not least, we had an unchanged sales level in Finland with a weaker margin, quite aggressive competition in the face of a weaker demand. The operating result from our franchise units in Denmark improved. All in all, the result of this sector was at the same level as last year. Order books for business units within Installation Services are generally weaker compared to the same time last year, obviously Finland being the main driver here. Next. There we go. We continue to see flat or slightly deflated cost development for most of our input materials. We have a continued focus on our debt level, as I already mentioned, of course, and in a somewhat soft interest environment, we expect opportunities to emerge to further expand the group in accordance with our strategic plan through acquisitions. Our expectations for demand in commercial new build and renovation remain on current level for the rest of this year, and probably, I could say for the beginning of next year. Residential new build will remain depressed in the very near future. Obviously, somewhat lower interest rates might help in that respect, and we also have an exception in Denmark, where we see a normal demand. In twenty-five, we expect more favorable market conditions on our main markets, with, again, the exception of Finland, where all market conditions are expected to remain changed. So over to you, Palle. Yes. Thank you very much, Martin, and let's look a bit more into the numbers here. So as we said, the net sales decreased to SEK 1,167 million. Organic development -2%. We had a bit of acquisitions with 1%, and currency had a negative impact with -2%. We had a record third quarter on the EBITDA. It's actually the highest EBITDA we had in a third quarter at 177 million, compared to 159 last year. And the EBITDA margin increased in the quarter to 15.1% with two percentage points, and on a rolling 12 basis, we're now at 10.7 percentage points here. Looking a bit more at the income statement here, I think you recognize the net sales, but gross margin for the quarter was at 28% versus 25.3% last year. Net financial items at SEK -18 in the quarter, whereof most of that is, of course, interest cost that we expect to continue to see go down. It was SEK 2 million lower this quarter than it was last year, but both interest rates come down and our net interest-bearing net debt as well is decreasing here. EBIT margin for the quarter was then, of course, as well, up to 12%, and on a rolling 12 basis, we're at 7% now. We continue to have a strong balance sheet when we look at this, and it allows us to do selective acquisitions, of course, the interest-bearing net debt at SEK 788 million. It is, the third quarter is typically a seasonally strong quarter for us when it comes to cash flow as well what we expect in the fourth quarter here. We have an equity asset ratio of almost spot on 50%, and the net debt/EBITDA ratio is at 1.8 currently, well below the covenant we have in our financing agreement. Moving on to look at ROCE, that improved one percentage point in the quarter from 9.7- 10.7 now, and also higher than it was when the year started at 10.2. The improvement actually comes from both the capital employed coming down, as well as profitability increasing here. Cash flow from operations on a rolling 12 basis at SEK 399 million, and with a cash conversion of a high 89%, I would say. We continue to see the normal seasonal changes in the working capital. As Martin said, last year we had throughout the year a very good decrease in inventory that of course we cannot repeat this year. Considering the business climate generally for the construction industry, we of course continue to closely monitor our operating receivables very much. Good. Looking into our two business areas, and starting with Products and Solutions, where we saw a decrease of net sales of 2%, all related to currency, with no acquisitions in this area in the most recent 12 months here. Positive development for sales in Finland and Denmark. Sweden on par with last year, where while we see a tougher development in Norway with negative sales, and on a rolling 12 basis, we're just about SEK 3.1 billion. EBITDA continues to develop positively, as it's done for a bit more than a year here, and we have an EBITDA margin of 18.2% in the quarter for this business area, compared to 15.6% last year, and generally, I would say all the different businesses have maintained or improved their margins. We still have some areas for improvement still, and in particular, the Taasinge Elementer, where we continue to see an unsatisfactory profitability level. The restructuring initiatives we mentioned before are being accelerated as we speak, basically. For the latest 12 months, the EBITDA margin at 14.4%. And then Installation Services, where net sales decreased 8%, that was -8% organically as well, where impact from acquisitions was +3% and balanced by currency being -3%. EBITDA and EBIT, I think, we can say, is basically on the same level as last year, whereas EBITDA margin increased slightly, and for the latest 12 months, we're at 4.4% EBITDA margin. We do see a tougher development in Finland, tougher market, and reduced profit levels generally in that market, while that is balanced with improved results from the Danish Franchise Network, where we have a minority stake and only consolidate our share of the net results. Yeah, then moving over to the financial targets and handing back to you, Martin. Yeah, thank you very much, Palle. So as you can see, in terms of sales growth, we believe we have achieved our target since we're faced, basically, with a slower demand and actually probably very slightly increased our market shares. In terms of profitability, we are still lagging our threshold of 13% in ROCE. We are approaching 11%, so not very far, but obviously we would like to return to the 13 as fast as we can. And the capital structure, you've seen that our debt level is at not historic lows, but certainly at a relatively low level, so a very solid balance sheet. Thank you, and I guess we can now take questions, please. Yeah. Yes, well, let's open up for questions. Thank you very much, Martin. So, if you want to ask a question, you can raise your hand in the meeting here, or you can send a question in the Q&A feed in the meeting, or yeah, send me an email and I'll pick it up here. If you're on the phone, you need to press star five to raise your hand for a question. So let me just shift the screen here if we have any questions coming in here. So again, let me just repeat. If you want to ask a question, please raise your hand in the Webex meeting here. Now, I will unmute you so you can ask your question. Yes. So, Sofia, you need to unmute yourself, but I, I've unmuted you on my side, so please, Sofia Sörling from Carnegie, please feel free to ask your questions. Yes. Thank you. Sofia here from Carnegie. Can you hear me? Yes, very well. Thank you. Great. Okay. Thank you for the presentation. So I have a first question regarding when you talked about Kingspan and you mentioned that you are happy about this new acquisition and you see that you can gain quite of synergies given this. Could you please give more details on what type of synergies you see that you can gain in the near and midterm? And yeah, that's my first question. Yeah, thank you very much. Important question, and I think basically, more and more, all of our competitors offer package solutions where you have a one-stop shopping opportunity for our customer base, and clearly, the insulation material Kingspan provides in at least some geographies will certainly be an integral part of that package, and also, I would say, in terms of strategic synergies, we could see a situation where with Kingspan's help, we can make further acquisitions in the Nordics, where Kingspan has probably a slightly lesser presence than in almost all of the other geographies, so again, strategic synergies are also down the road, an important factor. Okay, and would you say this is given the current situation when they're holding roughly 60% of the shares, or is this that they need to acquire more, or? Yeah, that would be after Kingspan takes full control, because, obviously, for the time being, we have to deal at arm's length, since there's still a 38-odd% of minority shareholders. Yeah. Okay. And then I have some questions on your margin improvement. So you mentioned actually that sales has coming down in both SealEco and also within the green infrastructure segment, but the margin has improved. What would you say is the main reason for the margin improvement here in both of those, in that type of a brand? Yeah, I think if you look, I mean, we are talking very slight effects. It's, it's not sort of a brutal change. But, in terms of, SealEco EPDM, we basically benefit from lower raw material cost, and- Mm we've made a number of cuts in our teams, which to sort of right size compared to the demand picture. So those are the main factors. And in Veg Tech, I think we probably have had a slightly sub-normal profitability last year, and we're just basically returning to normal levels. And we I think are very active there in terms of emphasizing the high end of our offer, which is city roof gardens, which are obviously more profitable than the run-of-the-mill sedum mats. So I think a good repositioning going on right there. All right. And also, my last question, is, of course, this is a seasonally strong quarter for you, but, would you say that this margin improvement and this margin in Q3 of 12% on group level, is that now more sustainable, or would you say it's more of a hiccup, positive hiccup, perhaps, during this quarter, or is something that we could- Yeah reduce? Mm-hmm. No, it's certainly not a hiccup. Now, if you're thinking of Q4, as you know, that's a tricky quarter, so we can't make any sort of prediction on Q4, but I would say that there's no reason to believe that there should be, again, a significant drop in our results at this point in time. Yeah. Okay, thank you. That was all my questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sofia. And if there's anyone else wanting to ask a question, please raise your hand in the meeting here. Okay, there doesn't seem like there are any more questions, so Martin, you want to wrap round it up? Yeah. No, just thank you all very much for listening in. It's been a pleasure.
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