Alimak Group AB (publ)

STO:ALIG

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Welcome to the Alimak Group Q1 2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions]Now I will hand the conference over to the speaker, CEO, Ole Kristian Jodahl; and CFO, Sylvain Grange. Please go ahead.

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

Thank you, and welcome to this quarter 1 call for 2024. And as always, with me, I have Sylvain here.As you maybe have seen already in the report, we have updated it slightly, and that you will also see now in the presentation, it's some new information. So hopefully you will appreciate that.Turning page and a short recap of the group and our strategy, diversified global industrial company. And I think we really start to become that truly. We are organized in 5 decentralized organization, fully customer-centric driven. And then we also have these fundamental drivers for our success that support our business that we are supported by some global trends.We do have a leading position in our focused niches that we operate. We have a really global footprint, also with a huge installed base, which is founding the base then for our service and aftermarket business. And we also have a strong balance sheet, good cash conversion. So it's a light model in that sense.Turning page. We started our New Heights program in June 2020. And then we set out a completely new strategy for the group. We reorganized, we refocused, and we have been driving profitable growth since 2022, and this is the program that we are still driving forward.Turning page, we have our financial targets and dividend policy, and you recognize this growing 6% to 10% and EBITDA margin of north of 18%. We said last summer we should deliver within 2 to 3 years. We have a leverage ratio of being below 2.5x and a dividend policy of 40% to 60%.Turning page, sustainability targets. You see here, we have CO2, of course, we have for employee, we have on the -- for our health and safety, and also towards our suppliers. And one thing I would like to highlight is also that as of April now 2024, we are in the commitment status for science-based targets. We had to have 1 year of figures for [ Truck tail ] on board before we could finally apply and that's now done, and we are in the commitment status, as I said.So turning page and moving more into the quarter. So yes, as we say, a little bit of a maybe mixed start through the year. We are still facing a challenging market, impacted by this persistently high interest rates and also, of course, the geopolitical uncertainty that we all see around us. We also have the U.S. elections coming up. And this do affect some investment decisions around. But still we do very well as a group due to our resilient model now.So group order intake was on par with our revenue, meaning also that our order book remains on a high level and the diversification, the global footprint, our customer focus, and the way we now drive the group, ensure that we could still deliver a very solid EBITDA margin in the quarter of 16.4% and also a very good cash flow with an increase of 99% year-over-year. So it's industrial and wind doing excellent results in the quarter.We also have Facade Access, which is very pleasing to see that there are now -- our action starts to bite, and we show solid improvements in that division. HSPS delivered a stable quarter. And as you have seen, of course, construction, they have a disappointing result, but again, a very strong order intake, which means that our Q2 will be back to normal.Turning page and a little bit more details for the quarter. Order intake was SEK 1.729 billion, down 8% or 7% organically, which is basically driven by a lower order intake in Facade Access, industrial and wind. We had good and very strong order intake, as I said then, in Construction division.Revenue was SEK 1.736 billion, down 1% or flat organically, where it's construction that report a low revenue, but that's due to the soft order intake we had in quarter 4 than last year. And then all of this is fully compensated by a very strong revenue in Industrial division in the quarter.EBITA adjusted was SEK 285 million, slightly down from the SEK 289 million and delivering, I would say, a solid margin of 16.4% versus the 16.6% last year. Continued the margin improvement in Facade Access very positively, but also then the significant lower margin in Construction division affects the quarter while we had then the strong results in Industrial and Wind.Turning page, and this is a slightly -- or a new slide, talking a little bit more of service. And as you know, service is a key component in the New Heights program. It's something that all divisions have as part of their business, and it's, of course, something that creates resilience for us.The focus for all divisions is around doing service. It's about spare parts. It's about certification of our machines. Most -- in most places, these needs to be certified on an annual base or more frequent. It's about training. It's about retrofit, et cetera. So we have a wide service portfolio, and this is, as I said, a very important piece for us. And we continue to actively drive the growth of this part of the business. And I'm happy to see that it's also developing in that way.Turning page and going into divisions, Facade Access. Order intake was SEK 423 million in the quarter, down 14%, also 14% organically. And it's the market for high complexity solutions or building maintenance units, as we call them, which is still challenging, while the market for medium and low complexity solutions continue to develop well, and that has been part of our strategy from -- in the New Heights program that we should be actively driving that piece of the market, which wasn't there before, and also something we fundamentally strengthened with the acquisition of Tractel. So that's positive to see that that's paying off and it's the right thing for us.We also see a good growth in the service and the retrofit segments across the board in the quarter. Revenue was SEK 485 million, flat organically, and service revenue continue to be an important part in these times where it's a little bit slower on the more complex side. EBITDA was SEK 46 million versus the SEK 29 million last year, giving a margin of 9.6% up from the 6%. And it's all driven by the activities that we do.We sign up new projects with better margin, including contingencies. We are putting in place this project execution, which is fundamental to keep control over the projects and the development of it. We are increasing prices of the service to ensure there we grow service more. And we're also acting on the factory side, as you know, and the German assembly site closure, as we announced in quarter four, is on its way.Turning page. Yes. So this Mammendorf assembly site closure is on schedule. We have signed the agreement with the German Works Council. The supply chain competency transfer to Madrid is ongoing, what we are transferring there. And the assembly site will basically be ended by the end of the year, with the exception of the Sydney Harbour Bridge project, which will continue to year end. And as we also said, just to remind you that this is saving of around SEK 60 million annually that we should start to see from '25 onwards. And that's on plan.We also did a small acquisition in the quarter, One Legacy in Malaysia. This is a specialist BMU service provider, turnover of SEK 6.7 million, but it's 15, 16 service technicians in this company, which means that we, of course, strengthen our presence and to do service and retrofit and all this in this area. So a small important piece for this business.Turning page into construction, order intake was SEK 484 million in the quarter, up 3%, 4% organically. And we see solid orders for new equipment, for rental parts and service. So overall, it was a very solid quarter. Revenue was then somewhat low, SEK 371 million, down 20% and also 20% organically. And this is fully driven by the softer order intake we saw in Q4 last year, which meant that we had very low invoicing out of the Skelleftea factory. This was the hoists coming from there, which was very low in January and February, while it was back more normal level in March.We also continue to see that the Scanclimber business, which is very Nordic focused, but we are trying to drive this globally, which will help us going forward. But the Nordic market is still slow. And that's also, of course, something that falls through somewhat due to the factory setup we have there in Poland.EBITDA ended at SEK 39 million, down from the SEK 86 million, margin of 10.4% versus the 18.5%. And again, fully driven by this volume drop of machines out of Skelleftea and the Poland factory. So this also means that we are -- we have been driving the make-buy initiative and focusing on this for a long time. And we are further also accelerating now some efforts here on the fixed cost structure to make sure that we can become more variable. But as I said also, driven by the new and very good order intake, margins will be back in quarter 2.Further turning page, long-term strategy remains. We have a very solid business here, good order intake in quarter 1, driven by our customer focus, geographic expansion. We are putting people in places where we haven't had before and getting sales around the globe, product development, and also our flexible business model with rental, used, we buy back, refurbish and sell again, et cetera.The market still continues to experience headwinds, and especially Nordic is very weak. But despite this, we continue to see a lot of growth opportunities in most regions around the world, like you see in our order intake in the quarter. Some examples of orders we have on during the quarter, we have multiple orders for construction hoists in the U.S. We have some significant orders for apartment projects in Dubai. We have been selling mast climbers with accessories in India, an important market for us, of course. And also, we have sold a solution or have an order for a solution for a first Skyscraper in Greece.Turning page, and this is basically what it's all about, that we are moving away from the product focus that I would argue that was here before to really an integrated model, where we work with our customers, where our intention is to move people, material, and businesses safely to new heights. So close with our customers, we take our technology leadership seriously. And we have built a sustainable business model. So here you see some sort of infrastructure around this with all the things that we have done over the last 2, 3 years, which we know are very much appreciated by our customers and lead through that we take market shares.Moving page, Height Safety & Productivity Solutions. Order intake was SEK 336 million in the quarter, down 4%, 4% organically. And excluding interdivision sales, growth was flat year-over-year, especially the lifting and handling an elevated business that hold up well for us while the distribution side was a little bit softer in the quarter. And this is also affected that type of business by a slightly shorter quarter.Revenue was SEK 354 million, down 2%, 3% organically. And yes, it is basically similar to order intake the reasoning behind this, and EBITA was SEK 61 million, down from SEK 75 million with a margin of 17.4% versus the 20.8%. And this decrease is, as I've been into before, mainly driven by the central cost allocation changes that we did mid last year, which means that this will also affect our Q2 before we have a comparable base.Turning page, business update here. We also continue to focus on sales, marketing, product development. We focus on certain segments, of course, to be even more specific and customer driven on the elevator, underground networks, confined space industries, fire and rescue. And this we see that leads to lead generation, our efforts here. And so it pays off. And this is all to secure, of course, that we are having a profitable growth going forward. We also work to further strengthen our service capability in this business, because that's also an important part.Regionalization has been happening, so we have changed the organization slightly to have a more North American, South European, Northern European, and this Asian setup, allowing for more resource sharing and cooperation across countries inside these regions. And then also a nice example here, that we're not just selling these products one by one, but we also package and we work with our customers like we have done here with the elevator company where we sell them some sort of complete solution with hoists, safety devices, pulleys, ropes, et cetera. So that's also a way that we are pursuing going forward to do more of these things.Turning page to industrial, order intake was SEK 328 million, down 12%, 11% organically. And the decrease here in the quarter is coming from the traction equipment side that was moving slow. But this is a question of when you close orders. The pipe is very strong, and we have no concerns here. So we expect this business to continue like it has been doing. We also continue to see strong parts and service growth throughout all regions and something of course very important for this division.Revenue was SEK 397 million, up 27%, 28% organically. And we had several key deliveries during the quarter with our key segments; cement, oil and gas, port customer, and also a strong aftermarket revenue in the quarter. So a very, very strong EBITDA of SEK 106 million, up from SEK 74 million last year, margin of 26.6% versus the 23.6%. And it's driven by volume, good project execution, and our aftermarket activity.Turning page, a little bit more about the business update. We continue also here in industrial to drive the strategy, adding more sales resources out there and in regions and places where we then are not so strong, where we see growth potential, for example, Latin America. We also continue to see success in some of our key segments, and on the offshore wind side, we have done a lot, and we secure nice orders again, now on the rack and pinion side. We continue to work on our aftermarket penetration, strengthening that setup. And also we have launched a nice new product. This is Ex, explosion proof lift, coming out of our China factory for non-regulated markets.Turning page to wind, order intake was SEK 175 million, down 16%, 15% organically. And this is just comparable to a higher Q1 2023. This is a solid, very good order intake level in our perspectives. Revenue was SEK 153 million, up 1%, 1% organically. Strong sales in most regions and specifically ladders, fall protection systems, and PPE that influenced the quarter. And also strong service activity in EMEA. EBITDA at SEK 30 million, up from SEK 25 million, a margin of 19.8% versus the 16.5%. Again, very, very strong performance and also supported by a favorable product mix.Turning page, we still continue to see that the wind market is being invested in. It's a very good long term and from '25 and onwards, we still believe that this will continue to grow faster. But there are still challenges in this industry. We see OEMs, our customers having quality issues on some of their turbines. And it's also some price competition in this market, but we feel we have a good strategy. We have a good position. We have been taking market shares and we feel well set for the remainder of this year. And also, when the market should further start to lift going forward. And we continue to invest in our product development, of course, to strengthen our offer.And then we turn page and into the income statement and then I leave for Sylvain.

[Sylvain Grange, executive]

Thank you, Ole, and good morning, everybody. On this slide, we present a summary profit and loss statement. I will not come back to order intake and revenue developments, which we have already commented. As far as EBITDA is concerned, it's interesting to see the resilience. EBITDA is almost flat in the quarter, despite cost inflationary pressures and the flat revenue.If we look below EBITDA, amortization is at its normal level, around SEK 50 million. Finance net is down due to the lower debt. This is related to the repayment of the Tractel acquisition bridge loan last year. And more generally, the impact of the positive operating cash flows in the last 12 months. Taxation rate is slightly up versus Q1 2023, and that is due to the country mix. And overall, that means we cross the bottom line, i.e. the net result by 6% in the quarter.I present here reported gross margin and operating expenses to give a little bit more color in respect of the EBITDA drivers. Gross margin has steadily increased to 40% plus. This reflects, in particular, gradual improvements in the Facade Access and Wind divisions, a consequence of their respective improved business models. In the quarter, as mentioned by Ole, wind was favorably impacted by the product mix. On the contrary, construction suffered a negative mix effect and low utilization in its manufacturing facilities.As a percentage of revenue, operating expenses are slightly up versus Q1 2023. We have incurred some specific additional expenses, such as sales expenses for the industrial division or product development for HSPS. But we are not fully happy with that overall cost level, and we have taken a number of cost initiatives to reduce them. Amongst those initiatives, I can refer to the closure of the Facade Access assembly facility in Germany, which we have already reported.And we have some other cost projects, in particular in the rack and pinion manufacturing facilities, where we are working on making the cost more viable, and that specifically applies to the Scanclimber facility in Poland. And besides, I can confirm that we are on track to deliver the SEK 40 million cost synergies expected from the Tractel integration.Results for the period was SEK 131 million versus SEK 124 million in Q1 2023. As I said, it's a growth of 6%. Excluding items affecting comparability, results for the period was SEK 135 million, up 7% from last year. EPS was SEK 1.24 versus SEK 1.72 last year. Adjusted for IAC and acquisition related amortization, EPS was SEK 1.66 versus SEK 2.11 last year. And obviously, EPS and adjusted EPS are affected by the higher number of shares further to the right issue in March last year.Next, please. And we are now moving to operating cash flow. And I am pleased, we are pleased with the trend in respect of operating cash flows. Cash has been and will be a focus. And more specifically, we have improved working capital management, and that is reflected in the numbers.Now coming to net debt, which is stable in the quarter, despite the good cash flow levels, and that is due to the impact of the weak SEK on our EUR 300 million term loan. We remind here that we chose the euro denomination, as most of the Tractel business is a euro business. Leverage is at 2.25x, which is in line with our target of being below 2.5x. As I said already, we will continue to focus on operating cash flows, which will contribute to future deleveraging.Our priorities for capital allocation remain unchanged. We will invest in organic growth, and I mentioned a few examples earlier. We continue to actively work on acquisition opportunities, allowed by the decreasing leverage. And of course, we will apply the dividend policy. And so ultimately, this is a broad proposal and an AGM decision.On this slide, I have added a ROCE graph, because this is a very important indicator for us. It's very slightly down in the quarter, mostly due to the ForEx impact on capital employee, and we are definitely working on making this curve rebound in the future.On this, I hand over to Ole.

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

Thank you, Sylvain. So to sum up, a mixed start to the year, but also I would say a very solid start, where we as a group show resilience through our business model. And we had a very strong industrial division result, been there for a long, long time. Wind continued to deliver great results, and it's a proof of the turnaround that we have done for that business. If you recall, that very nice to see how that's now quarter-after-quarter, month-after-month, continue to deliver.On the Facade Access side, we have made a big step forward. And it's also a confirmation that the activities that we are taking there are the right ones, and that we are on the way now of fixing that division. It will, of course, be a journey to really get it up to the other division levels, but that's our target.We have a stable HSPS business in the quarter. And we have a very strong order intake, I would say, on the construction side. So the results should be back on normal levels in quarter 2. So we will continue as a group to execute on our New Heights program. And also, of course, then to ensure that we deliver on our financial and sustainability targets going forward, as we have done before.And with that, I also say a big thank you to all employees for this good start to the year. And we move to Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Hanna Lindbo from DNB.

[Hanna Lindbo, analyst]

My first question I have to ask about the construction, the division margin, because I know that sales was weak due to Q4 orders, but it still seemed like very weak. And so is there any negative mix in this? Or how should I think about it going forward?

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

Yes. It is a negative mix in the sense that it was what was very low was the deliveries out of the Skelleftea factory. And also then, as we have continued to have low deliveries out of the Polish factory. You also know we have a Chinese factory, we have services, we have all the other parts, but it was especially these 2 factories that we had a very low start to the year, January, February, which, of course, have a significant impact on these factory setups.

[Hanna Lindbo, analyst]

So if I interrupt you, correctly for Q2, this should be back at like a normal margin level for you?

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

Yes. We have the orders that we are taking, are filling up the Skelleftea factory. Still we have a logon in the in the Scanclimber, but that we have also had for a while, so even though it was even tougher in the beginning of the year, but Skelleftea factory is absolutely back to normal.

[Hanna Lindbo, analyst]

And then I noticed that the share of service orders in Facade Access was very high. So my question is, is it any large order in this or is it like this kind of level we should expect in the future?

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

It's not a specifically big order or anything like this. It's the focus of our business, but it's also an equation of lower product order intake on the BMU side. So that's -- it's a relative term of the how you split the cake, which is the reasoning for that. So lower order is the BMU side, which is causing that effect or strengthening that effect, if you like.

[Hanna Lindbo, analyst]

Last question on the industrial margin. I think this one keeps impressing me and I think you have been above 22% margin for the last year now. And so my question is, how sustainable is this level for industrial or have you been -- how has the mix been the last year?

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

I don't think it's a -- heavily a mix issue, but it's an important volume trigger also, of course, in this quarter, because we had high deliveries and that volume effect also, of course, falls through like it should on the bottom line. And -- but at the same time, we have a good business model there. I don't foresee that the margins should start to drop significantly, but I can't promise this type of level, but you need to look upon the average over, a little bit more running level and we will see. But we have a good profit level in industrial and that we should remain to have absolutely.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

[Ole Jodahl, executive]

Then we have a written question here. I will read it, industrial biggest driver for margin improvement. Is it service margins that are increasing or equipment margins that are the biggest driver for the improvement?We work on pricing. So it's -- we expend on that side, all of it. But I think as I just referred to, the main lift in the quarter is that we also have a very high level of invoicing, which is of course the volume effect that also they pull through down to the results. Else, we have good margins in general about this business on both sides.That seems to be the only written question also. I give it a few seconds if there are more coming. I trust that means that we were pretty clear today. So I thank you, everyone, for the questions and for following. And yes, thank you until next time.