Hello, and welcome to this presentation with ViaCon. With us presenting today, we have the CEO, Stefan Nordström, and CFO, Philip Delborn, presenting the year-end report for 2024 and answering questions during the Q&A. If you have any questions, please use the form logged to the right, and we'll take that up after the presentation. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation. Thank you very much. Hello, this is Stefan Nordström, and I'm the CEO of the ViaCon Group. We will use the same agenda as at all quarterly calls. Today we will cover, and I will cover Q4 in brief first, and then the market and the outlook as we now see it. Philip will cover Q4 and full year 2024 financials. I will come back at the end with an interesting case study for infrastructure solutions. This time, a very interesting project that we delivered in Poland. We come back to a Q&A. Before we get into the details here, as we have continuously reported throughout the quarterly reports in 2024, the markets have been very tough given the high inflation, high interest rates, and the geopolitical worries. This has delayed many infrastructure projects throughout Europe, and we have clearly seen a big challenge in our top line. The Q4 numbers are not very impressive, and so is also not the full year of 2024. We have, of course, acted upon this situation, and I will share a little bit about that. Also during Q4, we have seen a very interesting trend shift in the market towards a more expected positive development into 2025. I will cover a little bit more about what we've done and what it looks like going forward. Philip will come back with the Q4 and 2024 in its details. If we start with the Q4 in brief, then we can see that at the end of the year, we see that a certain recovery of the markets has started. Not the least, we see this with our backlog, which is backlog for deliveries in 2025, is 27% higher than what it was when we entered into 2024. Also, as you can see from this little graph at the bottom left of this slide, there has been quite a positive trend in the order intake the last three months, actually, versus the year before. Both November, December, and this has continued in January in quite a positive way. As I said initially here, we have, of course, acted upon our situation. We have implemented significant efficiency measures throughout ViaCon Group, as we also did during the fall of 2023. Those actions have been focused on realizing synergies between our production facilities. Among others, we closed our German facility and integrated the production with our Polish operations. We have focused our sales efforts on geographies and solutions and products. We will see a more interesting profitability potential. In addition, we have also streamlined a lot of support functions within the group. This means that, and these measures are sustainable. It also means that leaving 2024, we have reduced the annual cost to an equivalent of EUR 6.5 million. These actions, combined with the trend shift we see to the left, and we believe that this trend will continue on the market throughout 2025, it means that we expect to return to more normal profit levels in 2025. We also issued a press release some weeks ago that we have signed a letter of intent with a partner to divest our property in our French operations. We signed a letter of intent in January. This letter of intent also includes a sales and lease back of the property for a period of three years. If this transaction is eventually completed, we expect to see quite a positive cash effect in Q2 of around EUR 9 million. The search for a new facility has, of course, started. With a new facility, we target quite significant several efficiency gains in our production, a more fit-for-purpose facility than what we currently have. It is quite important for us to develop our French operations. Looking a little bit at the market and how we see that going forward, some more details around this. I have reported several times during 2024 that EU funds for infrastructure investment have now been made available for the Polish government. Since the fall of 2024, we can now see that the national infrastructure institutions, this is the Board of Roads, Board of Railroads, have continuously issued many new larger infrastructure projects in the market. For us, this has meant a growth of our pipeline of new business opportunities and, of course, also an increase in the number of requests for quotations from our operations. Turkey continues also to be quite good and develops positively for us at the end of last year and continues into the beginning of 2025. Also, other markets show some very early signs of recovery compared with 2024. Overall, this means that we have won several new orders and therefore we have this strong backlog, 27% higher entering 2025 than what we had when we entered into 2024. A bit into Q1 of 2025, we can see a continuation of a positive trend versus 2024. We also expect other markets and more markets to return to more normal levels during 2025. That this general trend, together with the development of the Polish market, is sustainable also into 2026 and actually beyond. We do believe that there is a trend shift over some time that is now starting to happen. Also important to mention that both 2023 and 2024, we have had quite a weak market climate caused by the same reasons I mentioned in the beginning here. This has, of course, caused many players in our industries to hunger for growth. When markets are now returning to more normal levels, we do see a continued price pressure from all categories of players, both from concrete players and steel producers as well. With the continuation of the growth of the markets, we do expect this price pressure to slowly subside as we progress further into 2025. With that introduction, I leave over to hand over to you, Philip, to cover the financials. Thank you, Stefan. Let's start at the group numbers. As Stefan mentioned, the market restraints that we've seen throughout 2024 also impact the fourth quarter. We had an organic growth in sales of -4.5% in the quarter. We see that the market situation is holding back sales in certain geographies. When we look at EBITDA, we came in at EUR 5.1 million compared to EUR 8.6 million in Q4 last year. That is the situation in the market that is causing that. As mentioned, we have taken some quite significant measures on the cost side. That is all now implemented and will have a positive annual effect on the cost base of EUR 6.5 million. If we look at the order intake in the fourth quarter, it was -6.6% organically presenting in growth. The decrease is coming from geotechnical solutions and stormwater solutions. However, we do see a positive development during the end of the fourth quarter and also now in the start of 2024. Sorry to interrupt you there, Philip. I think it's just important to inform investors in the bond here that this EUR 6.5 million is the effect when we left 2024. During 2025, there are, of course, certain inflationary effects as well. It will have a positive effect overall on reduced costs in ViaCon. We cannot expect to detect EUR 6.5 million at the end of 2025. That's my whole point to clarify that. That's a good addition. Thanks, Stefan. If we then look into the three business units that we have, and we start with bridges and culverts. Here we can see an increase in the order intake, but the market condition has had an impact on the margin levels. As Stefan also mentioned, the slower market in 2024, combined with some competition, has impacted the margin levels, especially in bridges and culverts. We continue to see Turkey progressing quite well with high volumes. We also see other geographies that are developing stronger than previously, which is a positive sign. When we look at the margins in bridges and culverts in the fourth quarter, we're at 16.5% in the underlying EBITDA margin, which is lower than last year. That's a combination of the market conditions, but also the geographical mix that we see in the quarter in bridges and culverts. As I mentioned, the organic growth in order intake was good in this business unit. We are at 11.7% organic growth in order intake in Q4. Moving over to geotechnical solutions. Here we can see a decline in the top line. The organic growth was - 15.5%. However, it's important to notice that this decline in the top line is entirely coming from externally produced products. In geotechnical solutions, we have two parts, you could say. We produce our own products and solutions, but we also sell externally produced products. The decline on the top line is coming from those externally produced products, whilst the products that we produce internally are stable and solid. This decline of the top line is, of course, also impacting EBITDA. As a consequence of a lower top line, we have also a lower EBITDA. The organic growth in geotechnical solutions in the fourth quarter was - 14.3%. Finally, stormwater solutions. Here we can see that the market is still cautious in certain geographies. What we have seen is that some of the geographies are growing and expanding and doing quite well. There are still certain geographies where we see that the market is not back on the normal levels. What's positive is that the data center solution revenue has developed well during the quarters. That is important for us because that is a market where we really see that our products and solutions can make a big difference. There is a great future in that segment of the market. There is a decline in the EBITDA, and that is partly driven by the volumes, but also that the utilization in certain production facilities has been lower than normal. That has an impact on the margins, of course. The organic growth in order intake in the quarter was -30.4% in stormwater solutions. If we look at the cash flow, it was quite positive. We have cash flow from our operating activities of EUR 9.6 million in the quarter, which would be compared to EUR 6.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. A big part of this development is coming from changing working capital. Of course, the lower earnings is having a negative impact on the cash flow as well. We had CapEx of EUR 1.2 million, which is a normal level for us. We were at EUR 0.7 million a year ago. That is also under control. If we look at the financial position, when exiting 2024, we have a net debt of EUR 101 million, which is compared to EUR 95.2 million a year earlier. If we exclude the lease liabilities, we're at EUR 92 million end of 2024. Our cash position and equivalents were at EUR 24 million. That's compared to EUR 19.6 million the year before. This includes that we've drawn EUR 15 million of our revolving credit facility compared to EUR 10 million the year before. If we look at the equity, we're at -EUR 6 million compared to -EUR 1.2 million end of 2023. Those were the financials in a nutshell. I leave it back to you, Stefan, with the case study. Thank you very much, Philip. Let's round this off before the Q&A. We're sharing an interesting case study in this situation from Poland regarding the National Expressway S61. It's in the northern part of Poland. It was what we call a design and build system. The challenge we faced here was this S61 is an 18 km part of the Via Baltica route, which is a pan-European transport from Berlin to Helsinki through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. This project required several infrastructure solutions covering road bridges, wildlife crossings, and different culvert solutions. The solution we offered the customer was an engineered solution based on our good capabilities, both from the bridges and culvert part of the organization as well as the geotechnical part of our teams. The solution was quite comprehensive, included seven different bridges using what we call our ViaPlate, corrugated steel structures. One bridge was done in what we call Conspan, which is a pre-cast concrete arch, highly energy-efficient pre-cast concrete solution. Many culverts made with our HelCor technology and several culverts using our plastic pipes called Pecor Optima. The advantage for the customer in this case was that we were able to use our very broad and deep competence and also our unique portfolio of solutions. We were able to serve the customer's needs with a variety of our different solutions in a customized way. We offered in the end a package, a very cost-efficient solution. This included technical support in the beginning and also a quite quick and short delivery time. As usual, when we use these solutions and compare them with the alternatives, we offer a very, very strong reduction in CO2 emissions, in this case, more than 50%. On the pictures to the right, the upper picture you see is actually a wildlife crossing. At the bottom there, these are different viaducts for leading water away from the highway setup. That was the typical project in ViaCon, very similar to what we do in many other markets around in Europe. With that, we open up for Q&A on the situation. Thank you very much for that presentation. Yes, let's open up the Q&A section here. We'll start with the first question. The working capital release was driven by accounts receivable. Is this due to factoring, payment terms, or just seasonality? It's a combination of things. Also, when we see the markets returning with quite big and interesting project opportunities, which we then get orders on, we have started more and more to ask for a prepayment and a down payment of our different projects. That is one important contributing factor in this. Also, we continuously work with reducing our total working capital as well. This is a very natural way for us to work since many years back. We actually ended the year with a record low total working capital. We measure that in percent of the group revenue. Good work done by the whole organization here. Growth opportunity is mentioned in the comments from the CEO. Is now the right time for growth? We do expect so when we compare the backlog, as I reported, to 2024. This was a very positive situation entering into 2025. We do notice a continued increased market activity in many markets. It's not all yet back to full throttle, but we see signs of that this is developing in a positive direction throughout 2025. I would like to add returning to normal levels in 2025. For this, we are very well positioned now with a clearly lower cost base and a very trimmed and hungry organization to show a return of the performance in ViaCon. The personnel cost was about EUR 2 million higher in Q4 than the quarterly average during 2024. Is about EUR 12 million the expected quarterly cost going forward, or is this impacted by non-recurring items in Q4? It is impacted by non-recurring items in the Q4. It is not representative for the level that we expect going forward. We have reduced the cost overall quite significantly, as we mentioned, with EUR 6.5 million. All of that is not personnel cost, but a significant part of it is personnel cost. When doing so, there is, of course, some one-off cost that has occurred, and that is included in the fourth quarter personnel cost number. Thank you for that answer. What should we think about the magnitude of non-recurring items ahead? Is the closing of Mülheim accounted for in the Q4 numbers? Previous year has been about EUR 4 million-EUR 6 million annually. First answer is yes. The restructuring and move of production in Germany is included, the cost for that. Of course, since it's always difficult to predict how much the non-recurring items will be because they are, by nature, not always easy to foresee. I would say we've seen a higher level now in 2024, and that is very much due to the strong measures that we have taken. I don't expect us to be in a position where we need to take similar actions, at least not in the near future. You talk about normalized profits in the report. What is normalized profit margin on, for example, EBITDA basis? We do not disclose forward-looking figures and targets, of course. As a guidance, one should look into the profit levels we used to have two to three years ago. That is what we consider a normal profitability level in ViaCon. With the cost being trimmed down and a very focused organization now and the return of the markets to a normal level, this is a very logic ambition for 2025. Why are we not seeing stronger development in stormwater with increased problems with floodings and fires across the globe? Here we partly go to another set of customers. Actually, the majority of that business is going more to private investments and less public spending as we have for bridges and culverts and geotechnical. These customers have been hit more from higher inflation and higher interest rates. Specifically, our U.K. market has been extremely weak for two years in a row. Also here, we see now some early, very initial positive trends on that market as well. We do expect these products and solutions to grow over the years into the future in a very positive way, given the problems with floodings and heavy rains. Also from the fact that reusing rainwater for industrial applications is a very growing demand. We have mentioned data centers several times throughout our quarterly reports last year. We see a continued positive trend in this, but also other industrial applications are quite interested in reusing rainwater. Here we are very well positioned to participate in that growth in the years to come. Thank you, Stefan, for that answer. We will take one last question here before we wrap up the Q&A. With the bond becoming current and Q1 being the low season, how are you thinking about the possibility and timing of a potential refinancing of the bond? We are, of course, working together with our majority owners quite intensively on this. It is, and we have already started those discussions during December. It is way too early to disclose an exact detailed solution on this. We wanted to close Q4, to continue now these discussions, and eventually closing Q1 2025 to continue to have those discussions. That is high on our agenda together with our majority owners. To find that solution, and the work has already started. Okay. Thank you very much, Stefan and Philip, for that presentation, but also answering all our questions. Thank everyone who followed this presentation with ViaCon. I wish you all a great rest of the day. Thank you very much.
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