Hello, and welcome to today's web call with ViaCon Group, where CEO Stefan Nordström and CFO Philip Delborn will present a report for the first quarter of 2024. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A. If you have any questions, you can submit them to the form onto the right. With that said, I hand over the word to you guys. Thank you very much, and welcome to our Q1 presentation. So we will cover, as usual, the Q1 in brief from my side, including views on the market and the outlook, and Philip will come back with the Q1 2024 financials. We will end the presentation as usual with an interesting case study, this time order that we delivered in Turkey for the Bridges and Culverts business unit. And then, as our colleague said here, there will be a Q&A at the end. So if you start with the Q1 in brief, we have seen a growth of our sales and a strong organic growth, actually up 21.4% organic growth. We have seen specifically a strong development in our Bridges and Culverts business unit, but also in the Stormwater Solutions business unit. Our Geotechnical business unit was more impacted due to a pretty rough winter in many locations in Northern Europe, where we primarily sell the products and solutions from Geotechnical. So they were a little bit behind because of that. We have also enjoyed high volumes in Turkey. There is a great need to restore and improve both railroads or railways and roads after the earthquake in February last year in the southeastern and southern and southeastern part of the country. We did improve on the EBITDA, but also the EBITDA margins. The underlying EBITDA improved to 0.9 million EUR versus Q1 last year of -1.7 million EUR. Of course, the higher volumes have positively impacted the EBITDA, but we also enjoyed the lower costs that we achieved through our intensified efficiency work during the second half of 2023. We are glad to report that we have achieved an official approval of our science-based targets in our sustainability work, level three. This is from a nonprofit organization called SBTi, which is a go-to institution when it comes to questions like this. So our targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions has formally been approved. This means we are, or this is done on the back of our commitment to reach a net zero gas emissions or greenhouse gas emissions throughout our value chain by 2050. And therefore, the SBTi validation is a key milestone and a proof that we're on the right side of reaching the or supporting the Paris Agreement of maximum 1.5 degree Celsius temperature raises. In general, the activity in the market is higher now compared to corresponding period of last year, but it is not yet fully back to the level before 2023. And specifically in 2022, we enjoyed a somewhat stronger market, but we're going in that direction, but we're not yet fully there. The order intake in Q1 was behind Q1 of last year, but our order intake has developed quite positively into the beginning of Q2. And we believe that this is proof of that the market is there and getting healthier by the month. Last year, I think in beginning of Q2, we started to see quite a negative trend, actually. Moving to the market then in itself and the outlook of it. So we have reported many times last year or every quarter, actually, of the issues in the market coming from inflation and interest rate rises, which caused delays in our customers' decision making. This situation has now improved, as I said, but not yet back fully to the 2022 level. So the activity in the infrastructure market has developed quite positively in Q1 this year, and there is a good pipeline of opportunities that we are working on. Specifically, Poland, that's an important market for us, and there was a change of government at the end of 2023, and this meant that previously two years of frozen EU funds for infrastructure investments have gradually now started to be made available for Polish infrastructure investments. During the first quarter, these funds have not yet materialized in increased revenues for us. Still, our revenues in Q1 is better than last year, but we expect that these investments will gradually have a positive impact on us getting into the second half of 2024 and beyond. Also, the efficiency work we did last year, combined with good pricing management, this will allow us to manage any uncertainties in the private construction market, and manage also the continued inflationary pressures, although they are getting weaker by the day. Here is an important statement, which we issued in the Q1 as of yesterday. It's quite a formal text, and we need to stick to that formal text. And of course, being owned by a private equity owner like FSN Capital V, this V means the Fund V, and for further details on the definition of FSN Capital, please read the text at the bottom right of this slide. So a typical private equity owner, as most of you know, they usually own their portfolio companies for a limited period. Therefore, FSN Capital V has now initiated a strategic review to explore any alternatives for the ownership or their ownership in ViaCon. This includes, but it is not limited to, a potential public listing of existing or a combination of existing and new shares of ViaCon and may, among other options, involve a use of the proceeds to reduce the debt at ViaCon, either through existing repayment terms, repayment offers, or other similar transactions. I stop there for the time being, and I hand over the financials to you, Philip. Thank you, Stefan. And as usual, let's start to look at the full group summary. And as Stefan mentioned, we had a very strong organic growth in the first quarter, 21.4%. Also, the total growth was positive, 7.8%. And as you can see, there's quite a big difference between the organic growth and the total growth. And the reason for that is the Turkish currency, which has weakened during the quarter. But organically, underlying growth, 21.4%. And this positive sales growth is mainly coming from Bridges and Culverts and also Stormwater Solutions. And then if we look at our EBITDA, we improved with EUR 2.6 million compared to last year, so we ended up at EUR 0.9 million positive in the first quarter. This also, of course, means that we improved our margins, both in terms of EBIT and in terms of EBITDA margins. When we look at the order intake, we can see a slight decline in the organic growth of the order intake in the first quarter. But as you saw on the previous slides, the beginning of the second quarter has started positive and is actually above the same period last year. Then if we dig a bit deeper into the three business units and start with Bridges & Culverts Solutions, here you can see a really strong growth in the quarter, 78%. And despite this being a low season for us, our high season is normally the second or the third quarter. But despite the low season, we had quite strong sales and grow the business quite strongly during the first quarter. The improved margins in Bridges and Culverts is of course a combination of the increased sales, but also the improved efficiency work that we have conducted during 2023. So we can now see effects from that, which is, of course, very positive. If we look at the order intake, also here, a strong growth compared to last year, 26% in the first quarter. Then moving over to Geotechnical Solutions, here we can see a decline in sales, which is very much related to the weather conditions that we experienced during the first quarter. It was a tough winter, and we have a quite big proportion of our sales in the Northern Europe, where this was specifically obvious in terms of weather conditions. So we had a negative organic growth in the first quarter of 16.7%. Then if we look at the EBITDA levels, it's a small decline, which is, of course, linked to the decline in sales. But we have had positive support from the cost savings from the intensified efficiency work also in this business unit. The challenges we had in the first quarter very much related to the weather condition, also, of course, impacts the order intake in Q1. So we had a negative order intake in Geotechnical Solutions, so -24%. And then finally, the third business unit, StormWater Solutions. Here we see, quite similar to what we saw in Bridges and Culverts, a strong organic growth, 17.6%. This is actually despite that we have not yet seen the full recovery of the market up to the levels that we saw, for example, in 2022. So there is still some delays from our customers, in terms of their decision-making process, but nevertheless, we managed to grow StormWater Solutions in the first quarter. This, in combination with cost initiatives, led to an improved EBITDA and also improved margins. The organic growth in the first quarter for StormWater Solutions was negative, which is linked to the decision-making process of our customers, as I just mentioned. And then, a short look at our cash flow and our financial position. The cash flow from the operating activities improved compared to the first quarter of last year, so it was -EUR 2.9 million, compared to -EUR 8.1 million a year ago. And the change in working capital has supported this improvement. And the reason why it's negative in the quarter is that we are now building up working capital to be able to serve the high season quarters that we're now in the second and third quarter. In terms of CapEx, we continue to be on pretty much the same level as in the first quarter last year, EUR 0.7 million in Q1, compared to EUR 0.8 million the year before. If we look at the net debt, we reduced the net debt to EUR 97.7 million, which is lower than a year ago, where we were at EUR 101.5 million. And if we adjust for the lease liabilities, we're at EUR 85.8 million in net debt. The cash position by the end of Q1 was EUR 19.6 million, which is higher than a year ago, where we were at EUR 18.5 million. And on top of that, we have an undrawn revolving credit facility of EUR 5 million. The equity improved compared to a year ago to -0.2. So, an improvement from -0.25 end of the first quarter last year. So then, Stefan, I hand it back to you for some case study. Yes, thank you, Philip. So, at this time, we want to showcase a rehabilitation of railway lines in post-earthquake Turkey that we have recently delivered and installed. So the challenge we had here, or the customer faced, was that several railway lines were severely damaged in this major earthquake in February of last year. And it was commercially critical to get these railway lines up and running as quickly as possible. This rehabilitation task was a huge challenge due to very tight deadlines from the customer side, need for a quick implementation of our solutions. There were also different structure types across multiple locations. It was not just one solution that was sold and quite difficult geographical conditions in highly mountainous areas. The solution that we offered here was a full rehabilitation solution on 4 railway lines. On the first location, we did a tunnel reinforcement with our ViaPlate 200 product. We managed to complete this in only 65 days with our solution. Had the customer used a concrete solution, this would have taken at least 10 months to finish. In the second location, a complete railway line renewal had to be secured with 2.1 km of corrugated steel. This to protect rockfall down on the railway line. This was in a specifically difficult area to reach for the mountainous geography. On the third location, we did a steel bridge to protect an existing water pipeline. On the fourth location, all the damaged existing culvert from the earthquake and bridges were modernized with 75 ViaPlate 200 steel culverts and 35 HelCor steel pipes for water drainage. The advantage and the benefits for the customer with our solution was, of course, the speed of the completion, because of quite rapid installation and ease of assembly, compared to forging this in concrete. So up to 80% faster, compared to if this would have been done with a concrete solution. Also, an easier transportation. Our solution weighs much less than the concrete solutions. And specifically in these challenging mountainous areas, our modular solutions fit very well to install. And all in all, this meant up to a 20% lower total cost for the customer versus concrete, had they used that instead. So, quite a good case from us again. We have several such cases, but this is a recent one, and it shows the flexibility and the speed with which we can support our customers, combined with the competence, technical knowledge, and expertise that we have in-house in ViaCon. So it ended up in quite a beneficial situation for the customer and could start running the railway lines again in a much faster time, should they have used another solution instead of ours? Okay, that ends the formal presentation of Q1. So, let's open up for any Q&A. Yes. Thank you so much for the presentation here, and I think we jump straight to the Q&A here. How do you assess the current market conditions, and how do you think they will develop during the rest of the year? As we stated here, the market situation has improved. There's more activity now compared to last year, same period. There are more things in the pipeline, and we expect this level to continue throughout this year. So it is positive, but it's not yet fully back to the 2022 level, which was even more active. But we're moving in, in that direction. Thank you. What specific factors have contributed to the high organic growth at the beginning of the year? Philip, I leave that to you. Yeah. As you saw, it's both coming from Bridges and Culverts Solutions and also the business unit, Stormwater Solutions. And in Bridges and Culverts, Turkey has been, of course, a big driver. First, I mean, we have what Stefan just presented about the rebuilding and restoring after the earthquake. Also, Turkey is less impacted by the seasonality due to its geographical location, of course, compared to the Nordics. So I would say that's a big driver. And also we have in Stormwater Solutions a quite good underlying momentum, and we've seen that for a long period of time, even if there are periods where we can see a temporary short slower development. But over time, Bridges, StormWater Solutions are growing quite nicely. Thank you. So well said. You mentioned Turkey here. How has the weakening of the Turkish currency affected your financial result, and what are you doing to manage this? We see, of course, and that's one of the reasons why we have a quite big difference between the organic growth and the total growth. However, we do also have our cost base in Turkey, so revenues and costs are very much in the same country. So we monitor this, of course, and we try to secure that we get paid accordingly. For example, for the steel solutions, if the steel prices is moving, we make sure that our customer pays for that increase, of course. So it's not a big issue per se, but of course, it would have looked differently if the Turkish currency were more stable. I think it's important to add, Philip, that when we sell anything from our Turkish operations, it may not always be sold in local currency. We export also from Turkey to nearby markets, and also in Turkey, we sometimes also sell in euros. And that, of course, is one way to also offset the negative effect on the top line. Thank you. How will the approved science-based targets, SBTi, affect ViaCon's operations? Not the approval in itself, of course. This is just a good evidence of that we are doing the right things when it comes to our sustainability strategy. And when this is confirmed from an objective external organization, this is very good. But of course, our sustainability work means we are changing our way of working. We are increasing reusage of leftovers and scrap in production, instead of buying more virgin plastics, for instance, or on the steel side, of course, returning any scrap steel to our suppliers. It also means we are driving the sustainability argumentation on the customer side stronger and stronger, because we are meeting an increasing awareness and demand for such solutions. But other than that, I wouldn't say there are any dramatic important changes to how we operate internally. Thank you. What does the strategic review that FSN Capital has initiated mean for ViaCon, and how do you see opportunity and challenges of our potential IPO? Well, we cannot comment that in detail because no decisions have been made yet. What the outcome of such a review is, whether it's an exit at all, or whether it's an IPO. So when decisions have been made in this direction, we will have to come back and inform you. That's all we can say about this statement at this time. Thank you. Moving on to the last question here. You mentioned in the report that the change of government in Poland can create some opportunities. Can you tell us more about that? Yes, the previous government was not deemed to drive a democratic statesmanship or governance in the country from EU. There's a lot of details behind that involving the legal system and the appeals, and et cetera. This meant that EU actually froze funds for Poland, which were partly destined to invest in infrastructure projects. With the change of government, these funds have now gradually started to be released gradually during Q1 and actually partly into April as well. And we have not yet seen a change in demand from the market during Q1, but we expect to see a gradual improvement over time into the latter half of this year and into the years beyond 2024, of having made these funds now available due to the new government's more democratic approach to their governance, as judged by EU. Thank you. We actually received one more question here. "Can you comment on the performance of the business clean of the effects of the Turkish earthquake, or what can we expect in terms of growth when the demand effect from the earthquake subsides? Oh, Turkey in general is moving quite well for us. And of course, this earthquake situation has caused quite a big growth, I would say ever since last summer. But of course, we cannot expect there to be earthquakes every year. But in general, the trend, even if we take away these earthquake orders, is quite positive in Turkey. So we do expect a continued long-term positive development in that country. Thank you so much for answering our questions here today and presenting, and thank you all for tuning in. I wish you a pleasant weekend. Thank you. Great. Bye-bye.
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