Earnings Call Transcripts
Operator: Welcome to the Nederman Holding Q2 2026 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to speakers CEO Sven Kristensson and CFO Matthew Cusick. Please go ahead.
Sven Kristensson: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, taking the time, not sitting in the fabulous sunshine, at least in this part of Sweden. The second quarter was encouraging for Nederman and our owners. We saw a clear increase in customer activity and a strong order intake across all four divisions. This confirms a positive trend we saw at the end of the first quarter. You remember the first part of the first quarter wasn't that great. Market uncertainty persists. We continue to see customers investing in areas that are important for their operations. It's also encouraging that the investments we have made in innovation and operations over the recent years are creating results. This is strengthening our competitiveness. It's also helping us gain market share in traditional and new industries. During Q2, orders received increased in all four divisions. Extraction and Filtration Technology, which is the biggest division, had record order intake. Monitoring and Control Technology and Duct and Filter Technology had their highest quarterly order intake since Q1 last year. We also see continued growth in our service business. That's a focus area. It's very important for recurring revenue and long-term value creation. We continue to advance our innovation agenda through new product development and releases that address our customers' need for cleaner production, improved productivity, and safer work environment. At our Helsingborg Innovation Center, we are building unique dust analysis capabilities, which will improve both our product and our customers' safety. This initiative is generating interest in the market, has also been highlighted on Swedish national television and radio. As part of our agenda for market leadership and focus on Australia, we acquired the business of our distributor, Fume & Dust Control. We now have a clear presence in Queensland. This acquisition confirms our ambition to grow in a market with significant future potential. Profitability in Q2 was affected negatively by the lower order intake at the start of the year, as mentioned before. Our operational focus remains strong. We have continued to improve efficiency throughout the organization and maintained a high level of cash generation. Overall, the quarter reinforces our confidence in the direction of the company. We are well-positioned to elevate our market-leading position and continue creating value for the shareholders. With that, I hand over to Matthew, who will take you through the financial performance in more details.
Matthew Cusick: Okay, thank you. Moving on to the key financials and starting with orders received. Orders received, as we mentioned, picked up at the end of Q1, and this has continued throughout the second quarter. Strong inflow of orders across all divisions, particularly small and mid-size orders. No huge mega orders in Process Technology division, but growth in all four divisions, nonetheless. Total order intake for the quarter was SEK 1.48 billion versus up from SEK 1.425 billion last year. That's currency neutral and organic growth of 6.3%. What more can we say there? The currency effects are becoming less now. We've seen, at least at the moment, a relative stabilization of the U.S. dollar and the EUR against the Swedish Krona. I did say relative there. Orders received, if you see on the presentation, the chart in the middle, you can see that this is the second-best order intake quarter since Q1 of 2024, and that's at prevailing rates. I was playing around a little yesterday with looking at currency neutral, this is the best quarter of order intake since this chart started back earlier in 2023. Very pleasing with that order intake level. If we move on to the next slide and look at sales, of course, we had a weaker order intake, particularly in January and February, this has affected sales in this quarter. We're lacking some volume. Its sales were 3.7% down currency neutral. It's SEK 77 million lower than the same quarter last year, that does impact a bit on profitability. On the profitability side, we ended up with an adjusted EBITA of SEK 114 million, which is 8.3%. Earnings per share for the quarter, SEK 1.54 versus SEK 1.97 last year. More positively was cash flow. We had a good operating cash flow in the quarter, SEK+ 69 million in Q2 versus SEK 59 million in the same quarter last year. We see on the net debt that we have an increase Q2 versus Q1, that's typical in Nederman when we pay our dividend during the second quarter, it's paid right at the end of April this time. That was SEK 140 million alone, that does make some difference on the net debt. We expect this positive cash flow to continue into Q3 and Q4 now. A little bit on the divisions. I'll keep this a bit more brief than we have traditionally shown, Sven's already told us a lot about the key activities. If we take Extraction & Filtration Technology first, the largest division, record order intake, as Sven already mentioned, the highest quarterly order intake ever. Profitability, on the other hand, was lower. Lower sales volumes related to the order intake. That has the knock-on effect that capacity utilization in our factories is down. We have got very efficient factories, that's something that we ought to see an increase in utilization going forwards given the excess of orders over sales that we saw in this quarter. Basically, we've grown backlog in all three regions, which is pleasing as well. Orders received SEK 716 million is over SEK 100 million more than the sales of SEK 611 million. Adjusted EBITA is only 11% in this division. You can yourselves do the maths. If we have a sales of SEK 715 million, I think we can see a rapid pickup in the EBITDA margin going forwards. The key activities for E&FT were the acquisition of Fume & Dust Control in Australia. We're continuing to invest in North America, actually, the major investments now in the facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. We also held a Partner Royale event here in Helsingborg. We had over 50 European partners visiting us there. Process Technology development in the quarter. Some currency neutral growth in order intake and Process Technology. That is 1%. There are some markets now that are showing signs of stabilization. If we take the fiber and textile market, we actually saw growth in the quarter, which was pleasing. If we take India, for example, we also, on the foundry and smelter side, see the Indian business growing there. We've invested a bit of time and money in that, That's starting to reap rewards. The service business continues to grow as well, which is very important for this division. It has the better margins there. Some larger orders were booked, It was still on a relatively modest level. Orders SEK 380 million, sales SEK 390 million, which is SEK 10 million lower than last year in sales. Despite that, we actually had a slightly higher margin. EBITDA margin is at 8.9%. This shows the importance of continuing to grow the service business. The mix effect of having more service in there is clearly positive for profitability. Key activities in Process Technology, still focusing on product development. We're upgrading a test center at the moment, The digital range is fundamental for this, not least in order to connect it to the service side of things where we see this good profitability development. Moving on to Duct & Filter Technology. Extremely strong order intake in the second quarter here. The order intake picked up in March continued throughout the quarter. Sales increased marginally, It's not really a backlog business. Despite that, there is a bit of a backlog buildup. Very good profitability, good operational efficiency. These investments that we've made in, for example, in Thomasville in the U.S. and also the plant in Assens, in Denmark, are seeing increases in margins in the factories. If we talk about the numbers, external orders received SEK 194 million, total sales SEK 203 million, then an EBITDA margin is 19%, which is very pleasing. What must be pointed out is that this division also have built backlog in the quarter. The external orders received SEK 194 million. On top of that, they typically sell for around SEK 20 million-SEK 25 million to the other divisions in the Nederman Group. We ought to see a pickup in sales in the third quarter as well here. Key activities. BIM Toolbar has been launched in Europe. It's been very successful in helping us get larger orders in the U.S., We're aiming for the same here. Marketing activities have been quite important right now. We've tripled the production capacity for our heavy gauge ducting in the U.S., That business is developing well. It also brings in regular ducting business, We're highlighting that. We also have now a remote warehouse in Dallas as part of our ambition to improve the fast, friendly, reliable Nordfab Now concept a little bit further west in the U.S. An interesting thing here as well, the solar panel system in Thomasville, which we've expanded further, is now exceeding 1 GW of electricity production annually, which is actually helping with some decimal points on the EBITDA margin. It's a very good business case with solar panels in that part of the world. Monitoring & Control Technology. The positive here was a significant pickup in order intake in the second quarter, particularly in APAC. Both Gasmet and NEO Monitors performed strongly in APAC there. As probably expected, the sales did decline following the low order intake in Q1. Order backlog has therefore increased, which bodes well for the upcoming quarters. We see some clear indications the market is stabilizing. Orders received were SEK 192 million, which is very good. That's 17% growth. Sales were down at SEK 178 million from SEK 190 last year. The EBITDA margin is then 7.2%, which is a big drop from 14.9% last year. As well as a drop in sales, we had a somewhat negative mix effect here with Gasmet portable units. We had fewer of those in the sales mix in the quarter, which leads nicely onto key activities actually, because Gasmet have launched the new GT7000 Tellus, and we've received the first orders for that one. That will help margins once we start getting that up to significant volumes. The Nederman Insight digital platform is continuing to be developed. We'll have a new commercial release coming later in the year. We continue in this division to develop in product development. It's extremely important to do so, includes digital solutions. We even opened up, as well, something that's positive, a modernized service workshop in Houston, Texas, serving the U.S. market. We've improved that further there, which should help the aftermarket business. What we've done also, that's not actually mentioned on this slide, Monitoring & Control Technology now have launched their offices in both Korea and Singapore, which will continue to support this growth that we're seeing in the APAC region. There is definite potential for this division over there. Sven might talk about that a little later. So that's a crash course through what the divisions have been doing in the quarter. Financial calendar. Next time we speak to you in this forum will be on the 21st of October when we'll talk about Q3, and the year-end report is released on the 12th of February. With that, I think we can open up for any questions that listeners may have for us.
Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from August Flyning from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
August Flyning: Good morning, Sven and Matthew, thanks for taking my questions. Two questions from my side. We start with orders and projects, you mentioned discussions around slightly larger projects, particularly in Process Technology, which you hope to realize in the coming quarter. Are these mainly delayed customer decisions from earlier quarters or more new opportunities entering the pipeline?
Sven Kristensson: Hello. Sven here. I know that it's both. We have a very strong pipeline. We have a growing interest for our solutions. We are proving over and over again that we are technology leaders here. The interest to get lower usage of energy, et cetera, is of course of importance. We have, and we've said that now for one year, or more than one year, that it is a bit disappointing that the very strong pipeline we have and that are near decision within our customers, they are still hesitating. Of course, everybody knows the reason for that, and that is the macroeconomic, the uncertainties, and that's the situation we have. There is a lot of potential. Where we see an increase and are moving forward from small or low numbers in the sense of foundries and smelters, that we have introduced local manufacturing, local sourcing, and we've had significant success here, and that continues. Yes, we are reasonably positive that we will get these orders. The question is, when will the decisions be taken? It's also so that we have to remember our portion of these big projects are fairly small. It's bigger decisions that we are waiting for when it comes to new. Where we have a growing interest and some success is of course of refurbishment of other existing units.
Matthew Cusick: Which incidentally usually has higher margins as well, so it's business that we very much like to get.
August Flyning: All right. Thank you then. Sorry, did you-
Matthew Cusick: No, that was it. You had a second question, I believe.
August Flyning: That was it. Thanks. Onto margins then. I know, Matthew, you talked about it a little bit before, on Monitoring & Control, specifically. Margins came in clearly weak, if we look at a year-over-year basis. Would you say you see this mainly as recovering with high volumes, or should we expect mix and Asia investment to continue going forward?
Matthew Cusick: The biggest single problem we can't get away from is the volume, or was the volume in the quarter. I mean, SEK 177 million in sales versus SEK 192 million in orders, if we'd had SEK 15 million more in sales, the margins on these are very good. You would see a very quick uptick in the EBITA. That is the bigger issue. We had better order intake for these, for example, portable units in Gasmet. Also, Auburn in the U.S. as part of this division had a good quarter for order intake, and that's stronger than average margins for that division too. It is a weak margin in the quarter. It's the weakest one for some time, I think. Going forwards, we expect them to pick up quite clearly.
Sven Kristensson: I think it's fair to mention, we're also taking the investment of setting up sales and service organizations both in Singapore and in Korea. That is an important area. We have been quite focused on the Chinese market historically, with offices in Hong Kong and in Suzhou. We also see now due to some of the Americans want us definitely to be outside the Chinese hemisphere. That's the one reason. The other reason is that we are getting now permits to sell in especially the Korean market for, what do you call it?
Matthew Cusick: Semiconductors.
Sven Kristensson: Semiconductors market, which is an add-on to our existing. That's the reason we have this disappointing low margin. We expect to be able to, during the year, increase that.
August Flyning: All right. That was all for me. Thank you very much.
Matthew Cusick: Thank you.
Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Anna Widström from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Anna Widström: Good morning, Sven, and good morning, Matthew.
Matthew Cusick: Good morning.
Sven Kristensson: Good morning.
Anna Widström: Firstly, I just want to clarify, because it sounds like the pace of order activity gradually improved during the quarter. Is that your view as well, or was it rather stable at a solid level throughout?
Matthew Cusick: It was rather good throughout. It was a bit higher in June. It is quite often in our business, the case that the third month of a quarter is a little bit higher anyway. It did pick up a little bit in June, but it was solid throughout. It's been a much more comfortable quarter for me sitting here analyzing the numbers than Q1 was, where we saw the big pickup in the third month.
Sven Kristensson: I think it's fair to say we saw it in the latter part of Q1, the last weeks in March, and then it continued through Q2.
Matthew Cusick: Yeah.
Anna Widström: Just given that the order intake seems to be mainly related to small and mid-sized orders, should we think about it as a majority of these will be converted to invoicing quicker than usual, so a majority seen already in Q3?
Matthew Cusick: Inside this year, there's definitely more short-term visibility, a Q3, Q4, with deliveries into Europe, a lot of Europe sort of half closes down, I think it will stretch into Q4 as well.
Sven Kristensson: Also, the transportation problem is delaying some orders going to Australia, Asia, and so on, which is actually a couple of weeks. I think it's fair comment to say during this year.
Anna Widström: Okay, perfect. Then just a follow-up question on the E&FT division. With sort of the improving orders, is that then a recovery towards some of the prior customer segments that have been weak for the last couple of quarters, are you getting traction towards new customer segments?
Sven Kristensson: I would say that we get new customer segments as well. Where you have an issue still, we will see that Gasmet especially have a big portion to official governmental universities, customs, police, et cetera, and that has been very weak, especially on the North American side of it.
Matthew Cusick: You could say, Sven, geographically, we've done much better in Asia now.
Sven Kristensson: Absolutely.
Matthew Cusick: We've seen orders coming in India as well. We're focusing a bit there.
Sven Kristensson: That is a new opportunity. We have opened, we are utilizing, we have put resources in our existing, as we are doing, we are having a sort of a shared service in India, and we have now added sales people in that region, and we see some good inroads into the market.
Anna Widström: Okay, perfect. Are there any specific end markets that you've gotten good traction on, or is it very widespread?
Matthew Cusick: We could say we're quite positive about the semiconductor industry in Korea. We're not there yet, but we see some very positive signs, so that's one we're focusing on more. That has a lot of potential still.
Sven Kristensson: It's also linked to different regulations that we are, to be fair, the only one that can measure some of the substances to a level where it's needed, et cetera. It's both traditional and new customers. We are investing a bit, or quite a lot, in trying to find new customers, since some of the traditional businesses hasn't been that eager to buy at the same level or follow the increase that we would like it to be.
Anna Widström: Perfect. Then a question on if you've had any, because you mentioned delays in transport, for example, but have you also noticed some effect from cost pressure in the quarter? If you're going to do some price adjustments ahead?
Matthew Cusick: The U.S. steel prices are ticking up a little bit. That's the main thing that we've seen. We've adjusted prices with Duct & Filter Technology accordingly. I think you know, if we take the larger contract business in Process Technology, for example, there are back-to-back agreements within the contracts if there's significant fluctuations in raw material prices. We have adjusted some pricing accordingly, already. There are slight cost increases.
Anna Widström: Okay, great. A final one is how you're thinking about the net debt level. I mean, it increased during this quarter, as you said, it's partly related to the dividend payout. How are you thinking about this and what will be the priorities ahead?
Matthew Cusick: What we can say on net debt is the operating cash flow is ticking along quite nicely, particularly from E&FT, Duct & Filter Technology. They utilize more debt for themselves anyway. Where we've seen a difference is that Process Technology have had fewer larger orders in. These are these ones that are cash positive. You could say it depends when you start, how far you look back on this, the difference from the absolute peak when we had a massive order backlog is up towards SEK 200 million in terms of net debt here. We expect when Process Technology start booking some of these larger orders that we're referring to, you could see quite a quick downturn in the debt then. We don't, for example, see any major issues with customers delaying payments or bad debts or anything like that. Like I say, the regular ongoing business in Duct & Filter and E&FT in particular, that's ticking in nicely. It's more of a Process Technology connected one, largely.
Anna Widström: Okay, perfect. Just the final question from my side is on the comments that you made on potential improvements in the textile segment in Asia and India smelter site. Is that relating to activity in the pipeline or also in the actual orders that you book?
Matthew Cusick: It's in the actual orders that we've booked. They had rather low comparatives, but we saw a growth of around SEK 40 million-SEK 50 million, if I remember correctly in order intake in the quarter. It's particularly in India that we're seeing the increase in the fiber and textile at the moment.
Sven Kristensson: They're picking up a little bit.
Matthew Cusick: Yes.
Sven Kristensson: You have other more difficult markets. China hasn't come back yet, but India is. You have still weak markets, other textile market like Turkey and some of these regions. There are no other, sometimes there are larger investments, like in Egypt and some South American countries. We haven't seen that recovering yet. There is a pipeline, and fairly positive that there will be a bounce back. How? It's probably going to be a bumpy road, but we see that it seems like it's leveling out at least.
Matthew Cusick: It's definitely bottomed out now.
Sven Kristensson: Yeah.
Matthew Cusick: Yeah.
Anna Widström: Okay, perfect.
Sven Kristensson: For PT, they have some success with what we call these hot air applications, foundry smelters. We see that textile is coming back. Where there are still issues is the really mega project in these special engineering solutions. However, there is an enormous pipeline, so we'll see if they proceed and when.
Anna Widström: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for answering my questions. I'm happy.
Matthew Cusick: Thank you.
Sven Kristensson: Thank you.
Operator: There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Sven Kristensson: Yes, thank you for listening and for good questions. I try to conclude this session that we are very encouraged by the positive development during the quarter. Improvement in order intake across the group give us some confidence as we look ahead to the coming quarters. Growing service business providing recurring revenue streams and an increasingly strong digital offering continues to provide resilience and stability. We are performing well in as we control ourself, and although it's difficult to forecast the broader market recovery, our strategic direction is clear. We have a strong balance sheet, a growing presence in attractive markets and segments, and we continue to invest in operational excellence and innovation. These investments are already strengthening our competitiveness, while also positioning us to further increase profitability as market conditions improve. I would say that most importantly, the long-term fundamentals driving our business remain firmly in place. Awareness of the importance of clean air, resource efficiency, and safe industrial environment continues to grow around the world. With our leading technology, strong market position, and dedicated employees, Nederman is uniquely positioned to help customers address these challenges while creating sustainable value for all our stakeholders. We remain confident in our strategy, optimistic about our future opportunities, and commit to our journey of elevating Nederman. Once again, thank you for taking the time listening to us instead of being out in the fabulous weather we have here. Thank you very much.