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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Welcome to the Inwido Q1 2023 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Fredrik Meuller; and CFO, Peter Welin. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to this webcast and telco covering Inwido's first quarter performance in 2024. My name is Fredrik Meuller, and I'm delighted to say that I joined Inwido as President and CEO on the 10th of April. This is my tenth day in office actually, very exciting. By my side is Mr. Peter Welin, our Group CFO and Deputy CEO.
And of course, someone many of you are already familiar with. And let me start off by stating my appreciation to Peter for a job very well done as acting CEO during this interim phase between my predecessor, Henrik Hjalmarsson and myself. Taking great care of the company together with the rest of my management team and all of our coworkers across Europe.
While we -- in this call, we'll cover the highlights of quarter 1 in detail. It may be worth also taking a quick look at what Inwido today is all about. We are the leading window group in Europe with rolling 12 turnover of SEK 8.7 billion and return on operating capital of 13.7%. We employ some 4,200 fantastic individuals across our 34 business units. And while the strongholds are in the Nordic region, plus the U.K. and Ireland, we actually cover a total of 12 European countries.
A lot of the rationale behind my decision to join Inwido is listed on this page. I have to say that my early impressions of our company further strengthened my belief in this value proposition. We do enjoy a favorable exposure towards megatrends such as the green transition and a leading market position and a proven track record together with our financial muscle, enable us to really drive the consolidation within our industry going forward. In addition, we have a scalable e-com platform that broadens our offering, adding value to our customers by making it easy for them to do business with us.
Let me now turn your attention to the quarter that just passed. It is no surprise to anyone, of course, that new-build activity was very low, particularly in Sweden and in Finland. We were affected through substantially lower volumes. But despite these challenging market conditions, our profitability was solid, in fact, higher than pre-pandemic levels, proving the inherent strength of our business model.
In an agile fashion, we raised efficiency and reduced costs while also deliberately retaining critical competence and capacity in order to be ready for when demand returns. It's not all pitch black. On the contrary, I would say, we are starting to see positive signs on the consumer and renovation market, so far, most evident in Denmark and within e-commerce.
If we look at the figures, again, in a more normalized and seasonal context, where the first quarter is typically the weakest of the 4, our top line declined by 14% versus previous year. Adjusted for acquisitions, net sales declined by 21%. Our EBITA profit reached SEK 91 million, equaling a margin of 5.0%, down from SEK 168 million and 8.0%, respectively.
Sidey, our large U.K. acquisition last summer has added to our order intake and backlog growing by 1% and 41% in total. Organically, however, the same parameters were minus 9% and minus 13%. Return on operating capital decreased from 17.6% to 13.7% and our net debt in relation to EBITDA went up from 0.7x to 1.4x or 1.1x if not applying IFRS 16 accounting.
Sustainability remains high on our group agenda, and we yet again harvested on previous efforts also this quarter, as shown in our absolute figures. Relatively speaking, some KPIs were naturally hampered when shown as a portion of lower volumes. Seeing our accident and sick leave related figures improving brings a big smile to my face as this is very, very important to me and to the rest of the group.
And so is this, after the quarter ended, we obtained formal approval of our climate targets from the Science Based Target initiative. This is an important milestone for us and a seal of us contributing to a better planet by doing what we do best, namely developing and launching even more energy-efficient products and solutions. One key pillar for our long-term success is innovation, and it was, therefore, extra pleasing to note quite a few product launches throughout Q1, further solidifying our market leadership and our strategic position towards improved indoor climate and energy efficiency.
What better way for Elitfonster, for example, to celebrate its centenary then by launching its best windows ever in the Elite 100 series. And Diplomatdorrar, they did a collab with Assa Abloy's Yale brand to launch Diplosmart. And last but not least, Hajom launched a new exciting platform for sliding doors. Now it's time to dig deeper into our Q1 numbers, and I therefore hand over to you, Peter.
Thank you so much for that, Fredrik. I'll start with this page. This page is showing the income statement for Q1. To the left, we can see 2024, then we can see 2023. And to the right, we can see the latest 12 months. Sales is down by 14%. Organically, it's down by 21%, meaning we have lost SEK 495 million in sales compared to last year pro forma.
The gross margin was slightly down from 23.4% to 22.5%, a decline of 0.9% units due to the volume decline. Inwido has a large seasonality in the business where the Q1 is the lowest quarter for Inwido. The season starts in Q2. To be able to increase capacity as well as sales in Q2, we must balance the capacity level in Q1 and not reduce the capacity too much to handle the growth in Q2. Thereby, in Q1 this year with a sales decline of volume decline with more than 20%, we've not been able to fully compensate and defend the gross margin in the quarter as we did in 2023.
Operating EBITA declined to SEK 91 million compared to SEK 168 million last year. Operating EBITA margin was 5% compared to 8% last year. In the quarter this year, Inwido had a restructuring cost of SEK 7 million, mainly related to the 1 factory project in Vetlanda in Sweden. The profit after tax declined from SEK 112 million to SEK 28 million and the earnings per share from SEK 1.90 to SEK 0.37.
Looking at the latest 12 months, sales has declined to SEK 8.7 billion. Inwido has the during the latest 12 months lost more than 20% in volume. I said this before, I said it in February, when I presented the Q4 report, I've been here for 26 years, and I've never seen such a decline during my 26 years within this business and that is still valid for the Q1. So we have lost more than 20% of sales during the last 12 months and still we can deliver an operating EBITA margin of 10.9%.
This page is showing the sales development for Q1 as well as the order intake development for Q1, the year 2019 until 2024. To the left, you can see the sales development. And to the right, we can see the order intake development. We also marked the latest acquisition, Sidey that is the golden color in the blue table for 2024.
Sales is down by 40% compared to last year. Organically, down by 21%. If we compare to a pro forma of last year, that means a sales decline of SEK 495 million. We can see growth in e-commerce. E-commerce has been growing by 8%. E-commerce is selling only to the consumer market, mainly through the renovation markets. We have industry what we call new-build sales in Sweden, and we have it in Finland.
Sweden is reported under Scandinavia. And in Scandinavia, we can see a sales decline in the quarter of 25% compared to last year. Finland is reported under East and Eastern Europe, we can see a sales decline of 44% compared to last year.
Western Europe, we have an increase in sales of 90% compared to last year. Organically, it's down by 1% compared to last year. The order intake -- the order intake development can be seen to the right on this page. The order intake is plus 1% compared to last year, including Sidey. If we exclude Sidey, the order intake is down by 9%. Once again, we can see growth within the e-commerce business, turning to the consumer market. We have a growth of 12%. Scandinavia has a decline of 12%. Eastern Europe is down by 26%. And in Western Europe, we have a growth of 130%, of course, impacted by Sidey Group. Excluding Sidey, we still have a positive order intake development compared to last year due to the development in Ireland.
So the decline of 9%, excluding Sidey, is mainly related to the industry market, the new-build market, whereas we can see positive development in the consumer market. When it comes to e-commerce, we can also see a positive growth, small growth in Denmark, and we see less decline compared to the industry markets in Sweden and in Finland when looking at the consumer sales.
This page is showing the order backlog end of each quarter from Q1 2020 until Q1 2024. Once again, we have separated the Sidey because Sidey has a different business model compared to the rest of the group. Sidey, they are selling to the social housing in Scotland and they have quite a large order backlog compared to the rest of the group. Sidey has an order backlog, more or less 1 year of sales, whereas the rest of the group, when we sell to the consumer markets, we have order backlog just a couple of weeks ahead of us.
The total order backlog compared to last year is plus 41%. Excluding Sidey, it's down by 13%. So the difference, excluding Sidey, it's less now compared to previous quarters because in the Q1, sales declined by 21% organically, where the order intake was only down by 9%.
This page is showing operating EBITA and operating EBITA margin for Q1 from 2019 until 2024. As I said before, Inwido has a high seasonality and the Q1 is always the lowest quarter with the lowest profitability. Before the pandemic, the margin was around 3% to 4%. On this page, you can see that the margin in 2019, 2020 were 3.1% and 3.3%. Then during the pandemic, the seasonality reduced was reduced because of the high order intake in autumn.
We had a high order intake in 2020, 2022, and that impacted the sales and deliveries in the beginning of the year 2021 until 2023. So we had a positive impact, especially for Q1 during the pandemic. And now in 2024, we don't have that impact any more. And the margin has to decline. It's more normal, still above the level pre-pandemic. 5% this year compared to the level of 3% to 4% pre-pandemic and 2019, 2020 were 3.1% to 3.3%.
We have a financial target related return on operating capital. Return on operating capital is defined as a data rolling 12 months in percentage of the average operating capital and the average operating capital is the average latest 4 quarters. The target is 15% and due to the lower results, due to the lower volumes, the return on operating capital has declined in the quarter. It's now down to 13.7%. Below the target and still above the level the pre-pandemic.
The operating capital has increased during the last 4 quarters. And the main reason is the acquisition of Sidey in Scotland, which was made in June -- July of 2023. This page is showing the net debt and the net debt, including as well excluding IFRS 16 and as well as a net debt in relation to operating EBITDA, including as well as excluding IFRS 16.
We have also high seasonality when it comes to our net debt due to the working capital. The working capital is always as low as in December, and then it starts to increase in Q1, and this was also the impact on the reality for this year. The net debt has increased in Q1 and which is normal for the business. However, the increase this year was a little bit higher compared to last year due to the pandemic.
We had a higher and better sales in Q1 last year as compared to this year. Still, the net debt-to-EBITDA is still giving us a headroom for growth. It was 1.4%, including IFRS 16. And excluding IFRS 16, we are 1.1%. Compared to last year, we were 0.7%, including IFRS 16. If we then look at our different business areas, starting with Scandinavia. In Scandinavia, we have lower volumes in a challenging market, especially in the new-build market.
We have continued our activity in the market -- the new-build market in Sweden. And as I said before, we see an increased demand noticed amongst consumers in Denmark. We defended our gross margin. It was down by 0.3% units, even though sales declined by 24% from SEK 1.73 billion to SEK 860 million in the quarter. Operating EBITA went down from SEK 116 million down to SEK 60 million, and the operating EBITA margin went from 10.8% to 7.4%. The order intake declined by 12% and the backlog end of the quarter is down by 14% compared to last year.
In Eastern Europe, we are facing historically low activity in the new-build market in Finland. We have to go back to 1940 to see the same activities. We have taken efficiency measures, and we have made cost savings while retaining competence and capacity for the peak season. If you cut down too much in Q1, then we cannot increase sales when the season starts in Q2.
Sales is down by 43% compared to last year from SEK 565 million to SEK 321 million. The operating EBITA went from a positive of SEK 38 million to a loss of SEK 15 million. The margin went from 6.8% positive to a minus of 4.8%. The order intake declined by 26% and the backlog end of the quarter is down by 28% compared to last year.
In e-commerce, we can see a growth and improved margin. E-commerce is selling to the consumer market. So we can see a growth in the consumer-oriented online sales. Sales is plus 8% in the quarter from SEK 236 million to SEK 255 million. The operating EBITA went from SEK 4 million last year to SEK 11 million. The margin went from 1.5% to 4.2%. The order intake is also growing, it's plus 12%, and the backlog end of the quarter is more or less the same as last year.
The last but not least, Western Europe. In Western Europe, we have, of course, Sidey Group and Sidey Group has a large impact on the performance of Western Europe. However, Sidey Group has been a good contribution to Inwido and have delivered well despite the challenging markets. And Sidey is also less cycle than the other business units and has a good contribution to the results and margins in Q1 for Western Europe.
The other business in the U.K. have a negative impact -- affected by the lower demand in the consumer market. The total sales is plus 90% from SEK 223 million to SEK 424 million. If we compare the sales to a pro forma last year, sales is down by 1% compared to last year.
Operating EBITA from SEK 19 million to SEK 43 million. The operating EBITA margin has been improved from 8.7% to 10.2%. The order intake is plus 113% in total. Excluding Sidey, we still have positive order intake compared to last year, mainly due to the performance of Ireland, and order backlog in the quarter is up compared to last year from SEK 230 million to SEK 1.124 billion, mainly due to Sidey. However, excluding Sidey, we still have a higher order backlog end of March compared to last year. I'll now hand over back to Fredrik to make a short summary and the outlook.
Thank you, Peter. To sum up then, we can conclude that Inwido showed resilience in a quarter where markets continue to be challenging, particularly in the new-build sector and in Sweden and Finland. But there are definitely positive signs on the horizon in Q1 exemplified by consumers in e-com and in Denmark, and longer term by our positioning towards EUs green transition as well as our opportunity to further grow in Europe organically and via acquisitions.
And before we open up for Q&A, we would like to market both our upcoming events, including our AGM in Malmo on May 16 and as well as our annual and sustainability reports that are hot off the presses, there's lots of useful information in there. And now Peter and I would be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have, please.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Handelsbanken.
Can you hear me?
Yes, Rasmus.
Wonderful. It's always good to ask that one. When you answer -- asked the first question. Anyways, so Fredrik, now after 10 days, are you largely happy with what you see? Or do you think that there are things that you want to do differently? Or what's your first impression here?
That's a relevant question, of course, Rasmus. I had, first of all, a very warm welcome from everybody. I've had high expectations of Inwido. That was sort of a lot of the rationale for me joining the company, but I must say first impressions are very, very positive. High quality of my group management team, of course, also the Board of Directors and everybody else in the organization.
I like the culture I like the fact that we are very well positioned strategically with our leading positions, but also to continue to pursue profitable growth across Europe going forward. It's, of course, a tough -- it's been a challenging first quarter, but I think it's been managed really, really well by the company, I must say. So overall, very positive impressions so far. But again, it's 10 days into the office. I will -- I mean I think it's fresh to have actually an outside-in perspective coming into the company, someone else looking at the company in a somewhat different way.
And I intend, of course, to first of all, visit as many sites as possible and get to know the people, get to know the business as such and in the industry. And then in parallel, try to, I don't know, revise, update the strategy together with my group management team and our Board of Directors, but I don't foresee any drastic changes. I guess the old saying of if it isn't broken, don't fix it, it's very valid in this case. Inwido is in a very good place, and that makes it easier for me to take it to the next level as well.
I had some -- when you think about the outlook, as you look into -- gaze into your crystal balls, what do you think about consumer sales? Do you think it's -- it could be picking up in the second half of the year? Or how do you see that playing out?
It's of course -- it's literally the million-dollar question, isn't it? If I start then and maybe Peter can add on to it. Again, I'm fairly new to this, but it's -- we've had a good start to Q2. Still, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. There's a lot of psychology, I think. It seems that capital and the overall ambition is there, but a lot of decision-makers are sidelined and don't really dare to push the button yet. We've also had a cold winter. And of course, Easter this year ended up in Q1 rather than Q2. So that has all affected the figures a bit.
But again, for me, as an outsider, yes, I don't know. I think there's a psychology around, again, the interest rates. And we see, to some extent, that in the consumer market in Denmark, which is a little bit ahead of Sweden and Finland so far with lower inflation, lower interest rates. And there, we have an uptick in demand on the consumer side. So theoretically, that could and should happen in the other markets as well. But who knows? It's a very, very uncertain market. And new-build is, to some extent, a different ball game where, again, at the moment, we have been looking at, as Peter mentioned, figures. You have to go back to the 90s in Sweden and even the 40s in Finland to look at something similar.
So theoretically, there should be an overhang in the market, where even if we go back to normalized "levels", that should have a positive impact on demand, of course. And I don't know, 1 scenario could, of course, be already in a year or two's time, where you have substantially higher demand and theoretically almost difficulties in the supply chain to keep up. But again, the business model of Inwido and the performance track record that we have that we can handle both the upticks and the down takes bodes very well, I must say, it gives me comfort. Peter, I don't know if you want to add to what I just said?
No. As you are saying, I think the first out is the Danish consumers. There we can see some positive trends. And looking at the other markets, we are in belief as well as hope that it can be a turnaround or can reach a button in Q2 and beginning of second half of this year. I think in Sweden will be first out. It will take a little bit longer time when it comes to Finland and also when it comes to Norway.
And then the U.K. market, the consumer market is still challenging. However, there, we can -- we have 2 companies who have gone into bankruptcy in U.K. and another company is also in a little bit difficult situations. So there are some opportunities in the U.K. market, even though the market is a little bit negative, we can see some opportunities in the U.K. market.
And how are your pricing developing and your raw materials in this quarter?
In this quarter, the prices have been quite stable. There are some more competition right now, the price competition. We have seen some price decreases in the market -- we have been able to more or less keep our sales prices. However, there is a pressure on the sales prices. On the positive side, we see some decline when it comes to raw materials. We see that glass prices has been reduced. But of course, it is also an uncertainty, we all see now that the aluminum prices are going up. So -- but in total, we have lower prices right now this year compared to last year.
And just a final question. If you -- if we start to see a pickup in, say, housing starts or new construction, what is the timing until that impacts you?
It depends on the size of the building. But normally, we are not first in the project, but we're not last. We are a little bit in the middle, just before mills. So you start with the ground and then into the walls and your roof, then you try to close the building as soon as possible by putting in a window you can water secure a building. So we are in the first phase -- end of the first phase of the building construction. So it is a construction of its 1 year than we are in months 4, 5.
The next question comes from Sofia Sorling from Carnegie.
Sofia from Carnegie. So my first question is related to Eastern Europe. And could you give us some more detail on the significant decline in net sales. Would you say that, that is more due to the lower order backlog per Q4 last year or more related to the actually -- a decline in order intake during the quarter?
So it's both actually, I would like to say, but mainly is due to the lower order backlog that we have at end of December. We started the quarter with a low backlog compared to last year. And then the order intake is down by 26%, and that has, of course, impacted some of the sales in the quarter, especially the order take was quite low in the beginning of the year in January, and that impacted sales in March. But main impact is, of course, the backlog end of the quarter -- beginning of the quarter, that was much lower.
All right. And also, now you mentioned a little bit about the trend during the quarter. Could you give us some more details on the order intake trends or activity during the quarter in Q1 in the other business areas as well?
In Eastern Europe, it has been -- it was more negative in the beginning of the quarter compared to last year and less negative end of the quarter compared to last year. The rest of the group has been -- January, February was slightly down and then it was more down in March compared to last year. Then, of course, we have to remember, looking at March, we have also an Easter impact. When compared to last year, especially -- and that impacts, especially the consumer sales.
All right. And I noticed the high margin in Western Europe. Is this something that you expect will be a sustainable margin here? And if you could give the main reason for this improvement? Is it only or mainly a contribution from the Sidey Group?
Sidey has a good contribution to the margin improvement. We see some margin improvement in the other areas as well. Some of them are underway. But Sidey is the main contributor. And Sidey has a very solid order backlog has a good order intake and a solid market and doing very well on a challenging market. And we see that as sustainable for the future as well. Considering the order backlog is more or less full for this year. They are -- Sidey is more talking about 2025 than 2024 right now.
All right. Okay. And could you give the main reason for the strong demand in Ireland, I didn't catch that.
We -- Ireland is a little bit cyclical in that sense that we are -- in Ireland, we are selling both to consumers and 50% is to larger projects in Ireland. And we just managed to close some larger projects this year. We were not able to do in the beginning of last year. So we still see a stable market in Ireland. We don't see any larger increase or decline in the market we foresee a stable market in Ireland, and we're just able to take some larger orders this year.
Okay. And my last question is about M&A. Could you give us some more details around your pipeline and you expect to do any closer in the short term or medium term?
Yes. First of all, I must say, again, I'm only 10 days into my role here, but I'm genuinely impressed by also how we work with M&A. We have a very structured process, and I think we have a good reputation in the market, meaning that privately held companies, private owners are typically coming knocking on our door literally if they are considering some form of divestment. So that means we have decent funnel, I think, of potential targets. We are under no stress.
We don't have to do deals yet like -- because of that, we can cherry pick a little bit, and I think we have, again, a positive track record here of finding the right ones and integrating them in a very good way. And again, Sidey, a large acquisition we did last summer is a very good example of that. It's one of my priorities now to, of course, be a little bit of a catalyst on the discussions that we have all the ongoing. First of all, I need to understand the business a bit better, to be reasonably intelligent when I have these discussions with potential sellers.
But it is important for me to join forces with the rest of the team, including Peter to build these relationships and make sure that we take the right ones to the finish line sooner rather than later. Then as everybody knows, it's not something you can force either. The process takes time, and that's fine. At the moment, of course, it's a bit of a disequilibrium in the market in the sense that sellers are typically looking at selling, using normalized multiples, whereas we, as buyers, could, of course, consider somewhat lower multiples in the current market context. But at the same time, if it's a high-quality business that we're looking at, then we will pay a high-quality price as well, of course.
And I think the model that we have used in the past where we take a majority stake and then work together with the existing owners over time to develop even more value, that has been super successful, and that is something we can lean against now also for the future deals. So yes, it's difficult to respond specifically to your question, Sofia. We have a funnel and we're working hard to close a couple of those cases. Some are smaller, some are bigger.
And generally, of course, it will be -- I think we have produced a solid quarter, and we were well positioned to drive consolidation here. There are many other players across Europe that are having much, much tougher times than we are. We have the financial muscle, and we are boding well in this market context. So of course, they should theoretically be opportunities coming our way as well over the next few weeks and months. So we will work with those of course.
[Operator Instructions]
Until get some more questions on the telephone, I will ask our recent question we received through the web page. And the first question is coming from Oscar Brittin at Gannet Invest. And the question is that many of your competitors have declared bankruptcy due to the market climate. Will you see at this moment to acquire more companies at fairly low value actions and evaluations?
Yes, I can start by responding to that one. I think it's relatively related to the response I gave to Sofia's question just a minute ago. We are typically not looking for companies that are in financial distress. I don't think we have to. Rather, we are looking for high-quality assets that add to our offering or add to our geographical presence. That's typically what we've been doing in the past. It could be in existing markets, but it could also be totally new geographic markets for us.
There are still a couple of white spots on the European map for Inwido. But theoretically, yes, there should, as I mentioned, the cases coming our way that we can at least review and analyze and form an opinion about. And theoretically, again, multiples should go down a bit. So again, we follow the procedures and the processes we have internally, and I'm absolutely confident that they will be successful also going forward.
Second question has come from LBV Asset Management. And the question is, could you provide some color on your aluminum sourcing? How dependent are you on [ North Cadu ]? Is Polish-based [indiscernible] relevant supplier? Could you more broadly explain your aluminum sourcing strategy? Is it fully centralized? Do you hedge? Is it a tailwind or headwind for 2024?
I can take that question. In general, aluminum is, of course, important for us. It's an important material, but it's not the most important material. The most important material for us is glass thereafter comes wood and then comes aluminum. Aluminum as well as many of our larger materials are centralized. We make central procurement. When it comes to aluminum, yes, we do hedge, dependent from company to company and volumes, but we have some hedging. We are dependent on several of our suppliers. I cannot really say -- it's related to this Polish supplier. And of course, it is -- the aluminum practice has been quite stable. And then looking at the last weeks, the last week, we can see an increase, and that will, of course, have an impact for us in the future.
Next question is coming from Gene Capital in Switzerland. What is your assessment of the operating EBITA margin for the future? Is it estimated to be 5% in 2025, like in 2024 or higher or lower?
In general, we're not guiding when it comes to operating EBITA or the margin for the future., We are today in a 10.9% operating EBITA margin. We have during the 5, 6 quarters then especially the latest 4 quarters. facing a very challenging market with a volume decline of more than 20%. And we have been able to more or less defend our operating EBITA margin and it is today 10.9%. So nevertheless, how the future will look if the market goes up or the market goes down, we will react and be flexible and adjust to the future market situation.
Yes. Just to build on that, again, we have said many times now that we see a more seasonalized pattern, a more normalized pattern across our business. And in that sense, also the first quarter is typically the weakest quarter. So I think 1 should bear that in mind.
Next question is coming from Albin at Nordea. The e-commerce is positive year-on-year on all numbers, and you believe that you are gaining market share. What is the reason behind the belief that you are gaining market shares? What would you say is the normalized full year EBITA margin for e-commerce? And how is the M&A outlook for e-commerce specifically, especially?
I can take that. Yes, we are gaining much. We can see on different -- we have a different way to calculate and look at our competitors and the performance. And we also see some of the companies have been reported before the report last year as well as beginning of this year. And we can see that we have increased our sales where some of the competitors has actually lower sales. So yes, we have been able to improve our market shares. The reason for that is, I think that, I mean, in general, we are doing well because we own the full value chain.
We are not only selling windows on our e-commerce platform. We're also producing the windows. We're also taking care of the logistics. So we have a full value chain when it comes to e-commerce platforms. And thereby, we can be more efficient and thereby, we can also gain some market shares. When looking at normalized EBITA margin, that's a little bit hard and tricky to say. Before the pandemic, the margin was around 10% to 12%. And during the pandemic, the margin increased quite rapidly because the market increased quite rapidly. And the only way to lower the order intake was actually to increase prices, and that was all over the market. So all competitors or all suppliers and e-commerce gained -- improved the profitability during the pandemic.
And then after the pandemic, there has been quite tough price spike on the market and thereby the margin has been decreased. But it's very hard to say today what is a normal as EBITA margin. I think it's higher than what we are rolling on the day, but it will not be the same level as it were during the pandemic.
Then we have a question regarding to Ireland and U.K. How will you escalate in leader's position in England and Ireland. Now that so many -- some of your competitors are going to bankruptcy over there?
Yes. It's something we've touched upon a little bit. We know that, and we can then thankfully say that we are typically performing better with a bright outlook as well. Again, we don't want to pick up assets in financial distress. We will review each potential case on a case-by-case basis and sort of take it from there. So it's difficult right now to be more specific than that. But of course, U.K. and Ireland are markets that we like long term and that we will look into expanding our footprint further in just as some of the other markets that we are in and not in other parts of Europe.
And we can say that we have taken some new customers in U.K. and they were customers to the companies that went to bankruptcy. So we have increased the number of our customers and thereby also some positive and it comes from order intake in U.K.
Then next question is from Handelsbanken, [indiscernible] Johanson. She has 2 questions. The first question. Do you find that clients are aware of the new EU requirements on the energy performance and non-residential buildings? Or is that still not fully understood.
That's a good question. This is -- it's a complex material, but for us, generally very positive material. And I think there is always a bit of a need of education here. But generally, I would say, with all due respect for me being very new to this business, generally, I would say that there is quite a lot of understanding and in some cases, probably a little bit of stress that people are typically rather far away from the targets that have been set and that people need to adhere to. But again, for us, it's overall good news. And we do as best as we can in clarifying our position, vis-a-vis, this green transition creating opportunities for us in many dimensions. So there is an element of education still, I would say.
Second question from Josephine is congratulations on the validated Science Based Targets. What are the key steps to achieve these targets in your opinion?
Yes, it's a great milestone for us. And there's a lot of hard work behind this achievement. And the bad news, I guess, is that now is when the work really starts. But first, we celebrate this milestone, and then we continue out in our 34 business units to continue with training, continue with target setting and continue linking personnel and entity objectives to these targets as well.
So -- and we will measure and follow up this on a regular basis. Again, there's a very well-functioning, I don't know, call it, scorecard set up within Inwido that I'm already appreciating to see. And as you can see, many of the numbers that we are producing in Q1 are definitely going in the right direction. So our hard efforts are paying off. This is a huge area. It's a sustainability as such and many of the subcomponents of sustainability are huge areas.
So it's a matter of pinpointing the right ones as well to make sure that we get quality not just quantity in our performance. And I think most likely, that would be part of the overall strategy revisit as well that we'll do within the group management team over the next couple of months.
Next question is once again from LBV Asset Management. Can you provide some context of an Easter effect in Q1 on demand and how April is shaping up. We have, of course, an Easter impact and that -- especially when it comes to the order take of consumers, it has a negative impact looking at Easter. And that will then, of course, have a positive impact and then now comes into April. April, we're only 3 weeks into April. So far, you can see some positive signs and some positive development compared to Q1, but still too early to say how the Q2 will be.
And then the last question is from Azure. Is there any thoughts of share buybacks?
And -- we don't have any mandate today. The Board has not asked for any mandates for -- at the Annual General Meeting in May. So the answer to that question is no. No share buybacks. Our strategy and our target is to grow the business and to receive -- and to get to the target of SEK 20 billion 2030, and we are going to use our cash for acquisitions. Okay. That was the last question.
Well, again, thank you, Peter, and thank you, everyone, for listening in and asking very relevant questions. So hope you got a good response to them. So by that, we say thank you, and good day.