You are all very welcome to this full year report presentation from ViaCon. We are introducing Stefan Nordström, CEO, and Philip Delborn, CFO. Welcome, both of you, to this meeting. Thank you very much. Today, we intend to go through Q4 in brief and also the market development and outlook. Philip, you will share the Q4 2023 financials, and then I will come back and share an interesting case study from our business unit, StormWater Solutions. As usual, we will end up with a Q&A. If we take a look at the Q4 in brief, our EBITDA in Q4 was fully in line with our record Q4 performance in 2022. Normally, our fourth quarter is a little bit weaker due to seasonality and colder weather. In 2023, however, we experienced quite a softer market throughout the year, driven by higher inflation and delayed customer decision-making. In Q2, the situation recovered somewhat, and the combination of somewhat recovery on the volume and our cost reductions, which I will come to in a few minutes, we created an unusually high Q4 versus the rest of the year and also hit then the previous record from 2022. It also means that the second half of 2023 had a very high performance and actually 14% above same period 2022. The performance also led to improved EBITDA margins in Q4 and also for the full year of 2023. In Q4, our EBITDA margin was 16.6%, which is an increase of 2.2 percentage points versus the same period 2022. Also, the full-year margin increased to 12.5%, and that's an increase of 0.2 percentage points versus 2022 and a new record level for us. We have reported both for Q2 and Q3 that we initiated an intensified efficiency work that has now been fully implemented. It meant, among others, that we reduced the workforce by more than 180 positions in the group. Further on, the cost initiative resulted in a sustainable efficiency improvement corresponding to around EUR 10 million on an annual basis. Fully in line with what we have reported before. Also good to see during Q4 is a continued strong order intake. The order intake was EUR 41.5 million versus Q4 2022 of EUR 35.1 million. As you can see in the little graph on the bottom right, the order intake has also continued to develop positively into the beginning of 2024. The dark black line is 2023, 2024, and the gray, obviously, 2022 and 2023. Let's take a look at our view on the market and our outlook. First, as reported earlier during 2023, the inflation and the interest rate rises created delays in our customers' financing solutions for their infrastructure projects during the year. The situation improved somewhat during H2 2023, but still was not on the 2022 levels. We can now see that the activity in the infrastructure market is gradually increasing. We have very good pipelines and opportunities from that pipeline. An important detail here for us is that the Polish market is quite important for us, and the recent change of the government in Poland means that we do expect the release of EU funds for infrastructure investments to happen. They have been locked for more than two years. We have not seen the full effect of this yet. This is something that we are looking forward to during 2024 and beyond. For the private construction market, which mainly concerns StormWater and partly also GeoTechnical Solutions, we did see uncertainties in H2 2023, also driven by the high interest rate levels. This led to several customer delays in their decision-making and consequently pushed order intake and order decisions into the future. This we have reported already, both for actually Q2 and Q3. Going into 2024, we do see also for the StormWater Solutions and the part of GeoTechnical Solutions that are exposed to private construction markets, a strong pipeline and the dropping inflation levels throughout Europe indicate a gradual increased willingness for investment in the private construction market again. The availability and pricing of input goods is stable. Our efficiency work initiated June last year, combined with good pricing management or continued good pricing management, means that we will be able to pass along and manage the inflationary pressures in 2024 and also any continued uncertainties in the private construction market. We will continue to gain market shares from their competing alternative solutions, mostly concrete, but also plastics in some cases. Our sustainability solutions give us a very good competitive advantage. I hand over to Philip to share some more details of the Q4 financial reports. Thank you, Stefan. As Stefan mentioned, for the Group level, we saw improved margins and also an increased order intake in the fourth quarter. However, if you look at the organic growth in the fourth quarter, we had a negative organic growth of 9.8%. Looking into the different business areas, Bridges & Culverts Solutions actually had a positive sales development in local currencies, but we still see some effects of the delayed order decisions, both in GeoTechnical Solutions and in StormWater Solutions. If we look at the EBITDA, as mentioned, we are in line with 2022 despite the lower sales. We can see the improved margins both in the quarter and in the full year. In the third quarter, we had a strong order intake. It was close to 27% at that time. In the fourth quarter, we actually have an organic growth in the order intake of 30.6%. Very strong order intake also in this quarter. If we move over to the three business units and start with our largest business unit, Bridges & Culverts. Here we can see similar to what I've mentioned on the Group level with improved margins and strong order intake and an organic growth in this business unit of 4.3%, adjusted for currencies, of course. We see high activity in many markets, despite this being a low season for us. Normally, the second and the third quarter are the strongest quarter for us, but quite high activity also in the fourth quarter in 2023. The improved EBITDA margins are mainly coming from the efficiency initiatives that we now have fully implemented by the year-end. Organic growth in order intake, very high, 78%. We are actually on a full year on a higher level when it comes to order intake, despite the softer market conditions that we, especially in the first half of the year, experienced. If we move over to GeoTechnical Solutions, we had a negative organic growth of 22% in the quarter. This is to some extent impacted by the colder weather in several parts of Europe during the quarter, but also the delayed decisions from customers in specific markets. Looking at the EBITDA, it's slightly below the same period the year before, and that's, of course, an effect of the lower sales in the quarter. However, the efficiency work that we've been doing has supported us and helped us to stay on a positive EBITDA also in the fourth quarter. Organic growth in order intake was slightly negative, not that far from the same period in the fourth quarter in 2022, and we are closing the gap in terms of pace if we compare to 2022. EUR 15 million in order intake in the fourth quarter in this business unit. The third and the last business unit, which is StormWater Solutions. A bit similar when we look at the organic growth to what we saw in GeoTechnical. It's a negative organic growth in the fourth quarter of 26.5%. It's mainly related to a few specific markets where we continue to see decisions and orders being pushed into 2024. The decline in EBITDA is also here related to the lower sales. If we look at the full year, we are actually above 2022, both in terms of million of EUR and in percentage or margins. Full year, an improvement, but slightly behind in the fourth quarter. Very strong organic intake in StormWater Solutions, which is, of course, promising for the periods to come, 29% in the fourth quarter. As Stefan mentioned, we do have quite strong pipeline, especially in StormWater Solutions. A quick look at the cash flow and the financial position. We had a positive cash flow in the fourth quarter, EUR 6.2 million, and compared to EUR 11.4 million the corresponding period the year before. We have a positive effect from the change in working capital of EUR 3.3 million in the quarter, slightly lower than the fourth quarter 2022. That is mainly explained by quite strong activity in the end of the quarter, which means that we build up some working capital to support that activity. Our operating CapEx continued to be on a low level, and we keep a quite strict eye on that. We invested EUR 0.6 million in the fourth quarter, which is slightly lower than what we did the year before. In terms of financial position, our net debt was EUR 95 million, and that's to be compared with EUR 91.4 million the year before. However, the net debt reduced compared to the third quarter where we were on approximately EUR 102 million. The cash position was close to EUR 20 million when we closed the year, compared to EUR 28 the year before. However, this time or this year, we have EUR 10 million of undrawn revolving credit facility compared to EUR 5 million a year ago. An improvement also in our equity going from EUR 3.4 the year before, now up to EUR 4.2 million by the end of 2023. I hand it over back to you, Stefan. Okay. Thank you, Philip. As usual, we want to end these presentations with case studies showing what we offer to the market and to our customers. Today we have one case coming from the business unit, StormWater Solutions. We were installing rainwater harvesting tanks to collect rainwater from nearby rooftops and other areas to be used as process water for cooling computer service, or servers, sorry. The challenge we faced here was that a well-renowned multinational global company wanted to expand their infrastructure in Europe by building two new data centers in Sweden. This company has a strong sustainability focus and has committed to net zero targets. Alternative solutions had to be explored. We offered then rainwater harvesting tanks in corrugated steel, equipped with remote controlled devices inside and also outside the tanks, and we were selected as a viable and sustainable solution for this company's needs instead of the initially prescribed concrete solutions. We had a similar delivery to this customer three years ago, so our solutions were partly based on that very successful delivery. These tanks, they will then collect the rainwater from the nearby rooftops and also other surrounding areas. The rainwater will be processed and cleaned for later use as cooling water for the data center. The remote control rainwater harvesting allowed for an automated process with minimal manual intervention. The benefits we offer then to the customer and that the customer will achieve during the ongoing installations is, of course, on the product versus the prescribed concrete solution, an intelligent and customized design which allows for additional savings. Also better environmental credentials, which gave the customer the opportunity to attract more investment capital. On the cost side versus the concrete solution, a much shorter installation time, which also reduced the complexity and thereby also partly safety on the job site. Of course, significant reduction in the environmental footprint, coming from a lower CO2 equivalent impact, and also during the lifetime of the operations by using rainwater instead of municipal water. To the right, you just see some facts here. We delivered seven separate rainwater harvesting tanks in corrugated steel. We offered extra surface protection on these tanks to secure more than 80 years of lifetime, which actually exceeds the customer demands. The total size of this was 4,500 cubic meters total storage. The savings versus the prescribed solutions was 65% less CO2 equivalent emissions, 70% reduced installation time, and 30%-40% cost saving for the customer through, of course, the reduced installation time, but also through the remote controlled IoT-based devices that we could offer the customer for controlling the water temperature and quality before using it as cooling water. Of course, in addition, replacing fresh water from the municipality with rainwater adds additional sustainable benefits for the environment and, in this case, for the customer. That was a typical case from our side, and that ends the formal presentation of Q4 and full year 2023. We are ready for any Q&As or questions, and we will give the answers. Thank you so much, Stefan and Philip. Yes, we have some questions here that follows your presentation. We have from Carnegie, first question, "Do you expect reversal of the gross profit margin to historical levels, or can the current level be retained? We expect our gross margins to be retained. First of all, we don't disclose the gross margins as such, we expect them to be retained because the efficiency work last year focused also on our direct labor efficiency and getting better and better at promoting and finding the right customers. There are more customers all the time wanting to have the good sustainability solutions. We can sell a good value still with a cost reduction for our customers. Thank you. Anything you want to add, Philip? No. I think you summarized it well, Stefan. Thank you. What can be expected in terms of seasonality in 2024? Is it a reversal to normal to be expected? Well, 2024 is not over yet, it's hard to confirm that. We would, of course, hope that 2024 brings more normality in many aspects of the markets. As you could see in the presentation, the January order intake looked quite good, and we hope that this will continue throughout 2024. As I said in the presentation, with the lower inflations and interest rate levels, there is a gradual increased willingness to invest, both from the private side and on the state side, on the infrastructure. We do experience quite good pipelines currently. I also mentioned the important Polish market for us, that the new government, with the changes they are implementing, mainly to their legal system in Poland, will eventually release EU funds for infrastructure investments that have been locked for more than two years now. We have not yet seen that effect, but we can expect this effect to come during 2024. Will it be a normal seasonality? Hard to say. Good thing is market activity and willingness has clearly increased. Thank you for that answer. How does the customer demand seems to develop in 2024 versus last year? Yeah, as I said, I think the demand was always there during 2023. The difficulty was decision-making, given the high inflation rates and financing of the needs. There is a huge need to build new infrastructure in Europe, but also to refurbish existing ones. There is a high need and a high, how should I say, interest in Europe, many markets, to take care of increasing environmental problems like flooding, but also the opposite of that, drought periods, where we are very well-positioned with our StormWater tanks. That demand is still there. From an activity perspective, that is the difference, that we see stronger pipelines and a gradually increased interest to invest. I want to emphasize gradual because we are expecting more decisions to come throughout this year. Thank you. The company's tax rate has been high. What is the reason for that, and is it expected to persist? The short answer there is that it, of course, depends on the geographies and where we, so to say, are most profitable, and that could vary between the different years. It's a little bit difficult to give a short answer to that question. I would say that 2023 was not un-normal when it comes to the tax levels. I see. Thank you. One last question here. You mentioned in the presentation about your cost efficiency program last year. Can you brief us of how this affect future capacity? The focus on the cost reductions was done from a structural and efficiency perspective, primarily. This means we want to see a lasting effect of the reductions we have done, and this concerns both all the white-collar areas but also production areas. This means that we are quite well-positioned for increased EBIT and margins as soon as we see the volumes returning in a good way. Part of the cost reductions last year were capacity-focused, but the lasting sustainable effect of EUR 10 million is still what we are targeting and can see giving us an effect this year. We have never been better positioned to deal with good leverage on our bottom line from volume increases. It means also a higher sensitivity to any short-term volatilities than where we were in the beginning of 2023 and also previous years. Well-positioned and well-prepared for both good times, which we hope for and can see good indications of, but also good availability or good ability to deal with any short-term volatilities. Thank you for the positive future commentaries. We are now done with today's presentation. Thank you both, Stefan and Filip, and I wish you all the best in the future. Thank you. Thank you.
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