First Time Loading...

Nederman Holding AB
STO:NMAN

Watchlist Manager
Nederman Holding AB Logo
Nederman Holding AB
STO:NMAN
Watchlist
Price: 209.5 SEK 3.97% Market Closed
Updated: May 12, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2022-Q1

from 0
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Nederman Holding Audiocast with Teleconference First Quarter 2022. Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Sven Kristensson; and CFO, Matthew Cusick. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand over to your speakers. Thank you.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Good morning and welcome, and thank you for taking the time listening to us in this hectic and interesting days around the world. We are presenting Nederman Group's first quarter 2022, and we can start by stating it was -- for the first quarter, a record-strong first one. We had very good operating profit close to SEK 100 million. It's actually the highest ever profit in krona for a first quarter, which is normally not our best quarters.

We have had still high level of activity in our main market. We will come back to the concerns later. Strong order intake in all divisions comparing to last year's first quarter. We have also extended and sustainability-linked refinancing agreement, which we have signed during this quarter. As you all know, reading newspapers, watching news, we are living in interesting times. Some continued concerns that we have is geopolitical concerns around Russia, and we have paused our operations there.

There are still a component availability issues, material and component prices, the volatility is extreme. There are transport difficulties, tangible supply chain problems have impacted sales negatively. We have seen shortage of components in MCT. We have had, early on in the year, also, close stance or limitations in our capability due to COVID outbreak, et cetera. And then, we have the lockdowns in Shanghai now.

So you could, if you want to see it in a negative way, that's a lot of things going on. But the result is such we've been able to manage this. And like some of our divisional managers taking that quote from -- can these -- that provides an overcome. And that's what we're doing. And so far, we have been reasonably good at that. So we are very pleased under these circumstances for the results we could present.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

If I take over now and take a few slides on finance-related matters. As Sven already mentioned, we have signed a sustainability-linked credit facilities during the quarter. This means that our financing is now directly linked to our sustainability activities. In concrete, it means we've increased our debt capacity to a combined total of SEK 2.5 billion, which clearly increases our financial flexibility. These sustainability-linked facilities are with Handelsbanken at the Coordinate -- the Sustainability Coordinator and SEB and Svensk Exportkredit also involved.

There are interest discounts and/or penalties depending on achievement or nonachievement of sustainability targets. The targets that we have in the facility include those towards energy, in both energy intensity and CO2 emissions from our own production.

Moving on to Slide 4 and sticking with the numbers. As Sven said, good -- very good order intake. Sales could have been higher had we not had some of these issues that we mentioned that we'll come back to, but that, of course, means that our order backlog has continued to build. Incoming orders were SEK 1.345 billion in the quarter, which is a 23% currency-neutral growth versus the same quarter last year. Sales were very just shy of SEK 1.1 billion, which again, is an increase is 19% versus Q1 2021 currency-neutral.

On Slide 4, there's a couple of slides that shows some quite interesting reading. You can see that the row on the left chart, the rolling 4 quarters or the rolling 12 months incoming orders are approaching the SEK 5 billion mark, whereas on the right-hand chart, the sales figures, you see, we're around SEK 4.3 billion on a rolling 4 quarters. Like I mentioned, backlog has continued to build, and we expect the revenue to ramp up accordingly.

If we talk profitability in the first quarter, this is a record profit for the first quarter for the Nederman Group, SEK 11 million higher than the first quarter last year, SEK 98 million of adjusted operating profit, which gives a margin of 9%, very slightly lower than -- slightly lower than last year's 10-point in percentage terms, obviously, quite a lot more krona on the bottom line as earnings per share increased from SEK 1.63 up to SEK 2.01 for the quarter.

I think, I'll move on to Slide #6 and talk of cash flow and net debt. It was a weaker cash flow quarter. The quarter 1 for Nederman is typically the weakest cash flow quarter of the year. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first and foremost being quarter 4 is typically a very big quarter for order intake in the Process Technology division, large order decisions come in, in quarter 4. We received down payments typically very close to the end of the year. And we then commit to work on them in the first quarter, which reduces the cash flow position somewhat on those. This year is no exception, but I think on the bottom left chart, you can see, 2019, which perhaps was the most recent normal year, non-COVID year, we were actually significantly more negative than this year. But we're not so concerned. We expect this to move up in as the year progresses.

Net debt basically remained flat versus the previous quarter. We've increased -- we've reduced our debt significantly since the same point last year by well over SEK 300 million, which is a positive and creates opportunities as well we could say.

If we move on to the operations on Slide #7, Sven, I'll let you talk about Extraction & Filtration Technology and what's going on there.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Extraction & Filtration Technology is our largest division, and they have a very solid in 2021 behind them and continue to develop very well also in Q1. We have seen a very solid order intake growth, and we have seen strong trends during all sales channels. And actually, most markets, we will come back to China whereas later. We have had, interestingly, 5 larger solutions orders, which were lacking a little bit of that in fourth quarter. We are also growing the aftermarket, which is a positive thing in this area.

If we go to the regions to start with, we can say that basically, all markets with natural exceptions of the eastern front in this. We have had interesting new orders from the long-term standing relation with an American world-leading manufacturer of batteries. And we have worked since long-term in U.S. with them, helping them with a recycling business, mainly. Now, we have had the chance to also move that corporation into Europe, and we've landed a large order for battery manufacturing in Spain.

Metal extraction in U.K., the traditional one, wind turbine placed in Denmark a long-standing relations, but also, in the wood sector, window manufacturing in Poland. Where we see some issues in the automotive industry that are struggling. We are complaining about supply chain issues. I would say, it's nothing compared to the issues that they have in that industry. So we, of course, have an impact on the ability to take on new projects and investments at the moment.

If we move west to the Americas, we also had a very strong order growth during the quarter. And of course, which is natural with the site, USA is the primary driver and it's the biggest market. But improving in all areas, and we have also been able to move forward with our aftermarket efforts. In Americas, we are very dependent on secondary wood and some of the applications, so it's mainly been here where we've seen that our position has further strengthened the leading supplier of systems into that application area.

APAC has been a challenge of first quarter, and that's been a small decline in orders received. We can go 40% of all large major Chinese cities were under hard lockdown. And of course, that has an impact on our ability to do business. We have, however, been able to continue to develop the aftermarket. And here, we see that they have had some success.

Some of the key activities is, I think, and we mentioned it before. Since we have seen a difference in business behavior and how to meet customers during lockdowns, travel restrictions, et cetera. We have launched a Clean Air World Tour, where we digitally -- with a digital event on most recent trends in air filtration industrial process, et cetera, has been rolled out in the Nordic markets. We will continue U.K. and Central Europe later in the year, but we are focusing here on sort of enlightening and teaching our potential customers, electrical customers on what can we do -- we've done to meet the requirements.

Again, material cost has continued to increase, and they have been able to handle it reasonably well. And they -- freight problems has also continued to affect the supply chain. That has been challenging in getting our supply in time. There has been additional work to meet customer needs, replanning, et cetera. And we are coming back to the adapt, improvise, overcome. And of course, it takes resources from other activities in order to do this. But we have so far, had good support internally, good support from our customers, and I believe that we have had pleased customers that we have been doing our very best.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Financials for Extraction & Filtration Technology rather briefly. Incoming orders increased by almost 14% currency-neutral to SEK 513 million, a very good quarter for them there. Sales, SEK 467 million is an increase of 12% currency-neutral as adjusted EBITDA is up by approximately SEK 17 million to SEK 81 million, which is actually an increased EBITDA margin despite these pricing pressures and supply issues. So the [ EBITDA ] up to 17.4%. Like I said, SEK 17 million up in EBITDA is something we can be rather happy with for this division.

Moving on to Slide #8 and Process Technologies, Sven.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Process Technology, where we have large process, critical installations, and mainly, very large, long projects. The development during this quarter has been like that we have seen a continued strong order intake. We have improved sales and the order backlog has more than doubled in the last year. We still have a very strong working capital position.

In textile and fibers, where we mainly sell under the brand name Luwa, we have seen continued strong performance. We had very good -- had good order intake in all markets, with 1 exception, and that is China. The lockdowns has continued to impact our ability to do business, not only ours, but also, our customers and potential customers in that.

We booked the 3 major orders, large order, even for this division, total of SEK 80 million, so we continue to book order. We have had a very strong development that bounce back. You remember a year ago, 1.5 years ago when India was in total lockdown. Now, coming back, project that has been halted investments are moving forward. So good development in textile and fibers, and we've also been able to increase profitability here.

Foundry and smelters rising demand for our solution in European recycling industry. We have focused a lot on recycling in different areas. It's very interesting, and it is a growing area. We have, again, got some large order here.

Well, we have the most difference is in the customized solutions. We've got several medium-sized orders, and we have a very strong quotation pipeline, but it's very complex target with the long horizons. And that has been presenting challenging in managing the volatile raw material prices and supply chain disruptions. This is complex, large projects that -- where you plan for a long time. And here, you have seen difficulties, even if they are closed when it comes to increasing raw material prices, et cetera, it doesn't cover everything, so -- and it's also a matter of being able to supply.

So the key activities. We have signed the first subscription contract that when a customer pays monthly fee for Nederman to perform regular service and monitoring, it's basically on our vision to clean up as a service. We have continued to invest in our facilities to have a leading position. So we will grow our capabilities in our Germany factory for what is foundry, smelter space, competence center in Friesenheim, Germany.

We had, as mentioned, and we mentioned again, people doing, managing the challenging in the supply and logistic chain. We have a continued growth in the service business, and it needs to continue, because this is a crucial part of our strategy to grow our profitability in this division.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Financials for Process Technology then. Incoming orders, very strong again in the quarter, SEK 522 million is 33% currency-neutral growth. Sales, a little lower than anticipated due to the reasons Sven has explained, SEK 343 million is still 33% higher than last year. Of course, we must remember that. And EBITDA has increased somewhat to SEK 10.5 million, which is a margin of 3.1%.

If I move on to Slide #9, now, Sven, Monitoring & Control Technology.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Monitoring & Control Technology. We have seen the development of good order intake in the quarter. However, a bit disappointment on the sales side, because manufacture has been impacted negatively by component availability at this moment. And also, in the beginning of the year, we had, due to this COVID cases in the Nordic factories, some supply issues in that. There's a lot of people working full-time searching for component, making sure that we can supply, which is for this division, had most severe impact.

EMEA, orders really grew strongly versus 2021. As mentioned already, the COVID case of production and component challenges has been a problem. Production is now back on normal levels. And when we're talking about production, some of the key people is doing the clearance, have a university degree in physics. So it's not so that you can just go and get the new one if someone is away. So that has been a chapter. It's worth mentioning that it's very specialized competence that we have. Gasmet had a strong order intake, and that was also -- that including to the very significant order from the German power producer.

APAC, we -- despite lockdowns and so, we had a strong trend in orders received, especially for Gasmet but also from NEO Monitors. We secured several, but one special significant emissions bulk order for Gasmet. Sales, as I mentioned, slightly disappointing. It was only in line with Q1 2021 due to production challenges. And again, the new COVID -- the COVID lockdowns in China, of course, has a negative impact here. So we will see for April. But generally speaking, we are very positive for the time to come.

Americas, orders received increased, and we have a growing activity among customers in the region. We spent time to try to educate on European technology and availability of that, and we see that as a potential market for the future for us.

So what has been the key activities? Again, management of freight problem, managing our -- yes, you heard it before, I mentioned it, and I will continue to mention this. It is the same issues. So again, adapting provides overcome, and we managed to do it in a reasonable way.

We have continued the integration of the U.K. company Energy Save System that we acquired late last year. And it will work according to plan, and now, within the Nederman Group, still merger activities is ongoing, but we have received orders that actually exceeds our expectations or exceeded our expectation in the beginning.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

The financials for Monitoring & Control Technology. What we noticed here is that order intake grew faster than sales. This is a result of what we've said already, but we didn't get out as much as we -- in terms of sales as we would have liked to. Nevertheless, order intake, which perhaps, is the most important thing for the future, that it grew by 13% currency-neutral, 11.2% organically.

Sales were basically flat currency-neutral, slightly higher in prevailing currency rates to up to SEK 132 million. Adjusted EBITDA, SEK 17.5 million or 13.2%, would obviously be significantly higher if we had, for example, got out 10% or 15% more sales in the quarter than what you see contribution margins for this division are significantly higher than the other Nederman divisions.

Moving on to the fourth division. Last but not least, we can say this time, Duct & Filter Technology. Sven, over to you again.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Duct & Filter Technology. Filter and Ducting systems, we have had strong orders in both subdivisions. The backlog is at the highest level ever. And the larger share of sales of filter has impacted margins negatively drive profit again in real dollars or krona have continued to grow. And if you look at Nordfab, which is the brand name for the ducting, we have had a very strong growth compared to last year's Q1. Of course, the U.S. growth is, to a certain extent, to larger extent, price increase-driven small changes in volumes at the moment.

Cost levels continue to increase as a result of very high inflation in the U.S. We've secured, again, working with batteries, working with the recycling, et cetera, is important for us. And here, we again, see how we successfully land large orders in that application area.

In Europe, orders received grew strong compared with both Q1 and Q4 last year. And the cooperation between the divisions units we have had in U.K. and in Denmark, they have now worked well. The Brexit effect and they have stepped up, and we see good progress here on the European market. Also, our Thai operations saw good growth in orders.

And on the Menardi, where we do filter elements that are used in Nederman and other filters, we see a growth in our orders received. And we have a very high backlog in this area.

When it comes to the key activities in these divisions, one is that we are continuing to develop our business in Thomasville, Carolinas in U.S. We will have an extended building significant expansion. We will also extension of our capability. The decision will be taken to add more manufacturing capability as well. We will here reduce delivery times and efficiency, and we will have more efficiency in the production. We estimate to be ready during Q1, fully operational during Q1 2023. So it's a big step forward for a very successful business.

Also, this new easy-to-use interactive 3D tool, QFV. It was launched successfully in America last year. And I think that you remember that we proudly announced that we've got the innovation award in the good exhibition in Las Vegas, last August. Proud of that. It will now be launched in Europe during the second quarter of this year. Another step, easy to do, easy to do business from this way.

And again, proactive work monitoring and adapting prices to meet and manage volatile material costs. That continues and is an important part of daily work for all involved.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Financials with Duct & Filter Technology then. Incoming orders saw a very strong increase, 36% up and -- up to SEK 165 million for quarter 1. Sales, SEK 176 million is also a very strong 25% currency-neutral growth there. And adjusted EBITDA is most importantly, like Sven mentioned, Swedish krona, where between SEK 6 billion and SEK 7 million up versus quarter 1 last year. Now at SEK 32.2 million in EBITDA. That's a slight reduction in margin to 18.3% versus 20.2% last year. We must remember that inflation and price increases dilute margins in percentage terms, but nevertheless, we've handled things very well in this division and have increased our profit in Swedish krona, which is what most of our owners are most interested in, I dare say.

If we move on this short summary spend of the quarter.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Yes. Well, let's have the short summary. We have a record strong first quarter, very strong order intake in all 4 divisions. Various supply chain problems has had negative impact on our capability of -- on the sales and delivery. We have had the highest ever profit for the first quarter, and we have secured sustainability-linked financing during this period.

The continued concerns are, as mentioned, geopolitical component of [indiscernible] transport, the Chinese lockdowns and the least. But still summarizing, we have handled it well in the first quarter, and we expect to do so going forward.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Moving into our outlook, then, Sven, Slide 12.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Our base business and strong digital offering is benefiting us in the current market. We now see that the demand for long and midsized project has been gaining momentum. We say, however, an increase in risk that the problems in our supply chain and the higher price of materials and logistics will impact both customers' investment decision, our own production and ability to deliver.

Geopolitical volatility has also clearly increased further. Despite this increased volatility, uncertainty, we are cautiously optimistic about coming quarters due not least a very strong order backlog. Nederman's long-term potential continues to strengthen in the world and with in fact, into the damage that poor air does to people is increasing. Nederman, with its leading range within industrial air filtration has a key role to play and nearly unlimited possibilities for growth. What is needed and missing is even more political will throughout the world, to use regulations and incentives to use the risk that millions of people need to die prematurely each year from breathing in dirty and hazardous air.

Finishing up this. So the summary of the outlook is that we are positively looking at the future. There will be this services, which we will have to handle the best we can.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

So moving on to Slide 13, briefly, the financial calendar. Our Annual General Meeting is on this coming Monday, the 25th of April. For those of you who have registered, the interim report dates we have already released for the covering 3 quarter ends.

So with that, I think we can open up if there are any questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Anna Widström from Handelsbanken.

A
Anna Lindholm-Widström
analyst

So as you mentioned, you've had a really strong order intake in the first quarter. And I'm quite curious on how the trend has been within the quarter and maybe, the last month if the general feeling in the market that the optimism might be fading in the later parts of the quarter? Have you experienced that in any way?

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

No, I wouldn't say if I say that the optimist has been fading. We cannot say that it's normally so actually, that March is the best month normally in the first quarter, and it continues to be so. I think we have had good momentum through the whole quarter. And we are cautiously optimistic also for April. April will have its challenges because you have tight New Year, you have Easter, you have all of that. So it's very few working days, but again, then May, the new degree can come back.

We still see that there is a good demand for our products. We believe that we are moving forward to further strengthen our position as a leading supplier in this field. So it's still good momentum in that. What we then say is that we will just have to deal with the problem that we call it the practical problems around it, and it was, of course, a challenge.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

And one thing we could point out in terms of momentum is that there is a little -- you probably picked this up already, but there is a little bit of difference between the regions with probably the most momentum in the Americas right now then followed by Europe, not far behind, but America leading the way. And then, Asia is more dampened due to the fact that the Asia is so heavily Chinese-impacted.

A
Anna Lindholm-Widström
analyst

Perfect. And just a follow-up on that. In the -- due to the lockdowns in China and so on, are you directly affected anyway? Do you usually have some orders from these regions that are affected by the lockdowns? Or is it a sort of indirect effect within the region?

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

I would say the effect is mostly that we have 3 factories in China, supplying mainly the Chinese market. Some of what little guys do is [indiscernible] again to neighboring countries in Asia. It's not going to Europe or U.S. typically. So it's been mainly affecting the APAC business.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Just to follow up a little bit on that. We do have very much of our supply chain is built around what we produce in Europe is staying in Europe or what we produce in the U.S. is staying in U.S. And the same goes for APAC. So we have little movement outside of Asia. It's in fact so that we ship significantly more from Europe to Asia than the other way around.

A
Anna Lindholm-Widström
analyst

Great. And just in terms of the price increases that you had to do towards the customer to sort of handle the increased costs. Do you have any idea of how much of the growth that comes from volume and from prices?

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

That one -- I can take that one, Sven. It's very difficult to answer. What I can say is it differs significantly between the divisions. If you take Process Technology, the order intake momentum has been very good. So the increase, you can see, is actually more related to more projects or more volume, if you can call it volume for that business.

Whereas if you take Duct & Filter Technology, particularly on the Duct side like we stated, the large chunk of the increase on the top line comes from price increases. You're probably in that division, I dare say, you're well, well, well over 50%. It's probably halfway to 100% from there, and there is some volume increase. But it differs very much between the divisions, and then the other 2 divisions are somewhere in between those 2. I don't I give you a figure for the...

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

[indiscernible] growth towards more product, more volume.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

We see more volume there. We've seen E&FT, we mentioned it as well, we've seen more -- these larger orders for the Nederman Group, they're kind of midsize, but they're large orders for that division. Those have definitely increased a little bit, and the base business is solid. So there's definitely a volume increase in E&FT. There's more to do in the factories than we had 6 months ago, absolutely.

A
Anna Lindholm-Widström
analyst

Okay. Perfect. And just thinking ahead, if you have any sort of idea on how we should think about the sort of conversion rates within the segment? Because usually, when you have a bit more say, normal growth and not these exceptional growth that you've had, you've been able to reach quite good conversion rates. But just looking at, for example, Process Technology, what sort of delivery capacity do you think that we should maybe estimate ahead?

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Do you dare to answer, Sven, or no? I think in Process Technology, what I can say, rather than looking forward, Process Technology was definitely behind what we had hoped for, for quarter 1. I expect it to ramp -- I firstly expect it to ramp up from where -- quarter 1 is not what -- the volumes we expect for the rest of the year. That's absolutely not where we are. And they have a backlog that's there.

What's also important to remember is that Process Technology is not -- we have our own production in Friesenheim in Germany, but we're not -- and didn't lose the business. But overall, we're not overly reliant on our own production globally for that division. Luwa have the factory in India working on a double shift. There's further capacity there. So we -- it's more external factors that are slowing our ramp up.

So if you see -- start seeing a -- what you can say is if you start seeing movement or easing up on any of these challenges with supply chains generally, you will see a ramp-up in Process Technologies revenue as well, I dare say that.

And then also, we ought to mention Monitoring & Control Technology, where we had mentioned issues with highly qualified production staff who basically weren't allowed into the office because they tested -- or into the buildings because they tested positive for COVID at the start of the year when Omicron was there. That hurts that -- we've got capacity back up, but -- and we're working to catch up, but it's not that you can put huge volumes, more volumes through. So we're back to normal capacity, and we will -- you ought to expect an increase in that -- a clear increase in that division again in Q2. They've got a very high backlog. But it's positive, we would rather it was on the income statement than in the order backlog but that's where it's better than it's in the backlog, at least.

A
Anna Lindholm-Widström
analyst

Yes. Perfect. And then I have one last question on a bit [ trimmed ] one, I don't know. But looking at your inventories and the working capital for this quarter, you mentioned the sort Q1 effect that is usually seen this season. But how should we think about the high backlog as we see continued cost increase is the working capital that you had that -- we should see had and also, your inventory buildup?

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Yes. We -- I mean, we've built some inventory up and that was actually intentional. And you see you also combined with actually just building the volume of inventory, we've got obviously price increases, which do impact cash flow negatively. What I don't want people to get too hung up on it, is the chart that I had on -- I put into this presentation on Slide #6, I think it was. We have been overachieving on our cash flow from operating activities. We've been well over SEK 500 million on a rolling 4-quarter basis. And now, for a company that's -- well, we're around SEK 460 million last year in EBIT, SEK 460 million, that's not quite sustainable there.

But we don't see a major risk that we need to increase inventory significantly more now. So you ought to expect some more normalization of working capital development for the rest of the year is our feeling right now. I push our regional CFOs very hard on working capital management, and they have actually done a very good job throughout the whole of this COVID period.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

In receivables, we've been very good.

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

Yes.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from [ Gustaf von Sivers ] from [indiscernible].

U
Unknown Analyst

Just 2 questions. One here on the supply chain problems and the freight costs. Do you see that as getting worse? Or is it getting -- or being caused it? Or is it easing off going forward? Do you have any feeling for that? I mean, aside from China that is of course, big but in other markets?

M
Matthew Cusick
executive

On the supply chain, there was a very specific European one, where the large number of Ukrainian truck drivers in Europe, which is unlikely to improve, as these guys are all heading back to Ukraine. That has actually had quite an impact on some of our European deliveries. So that challenge is continuing as we suspect. Price-wise, I don't dare say what will happen there.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

No. It's very difficult. It's -- there is, of course -- they have problems. The fuel prices has skyrocketed and that also put the pressure on it. But I don't think it's becoming worse. On the contrary, I think it's more, again, adapting to a new situation. This is new normal. So you plan in a different way. It's not the shock wave that came in the beginning. So I would rather say it's easing up, but again, we will see continuous -- we will have to live with this situation for a couple of months more, I think. But if people learn how to handle it in a better way.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. The next question about the Process Technology we were on that before. But looking at the Nederman Group, you have the other divisions coming in with margins around 15% and 20%, sometimes over 20% last -- this fantastic year. And you have this Process Technology division that's hovering into [ 3%, 5% ]. I know Matthew always says there's good cash flow, people pay in advance. But I feel like looking from the stock market view as an investor, it drags the total impression of your group down. Are you -- I mean, how are you going to do about to change that? I mean, I think you said before, you can't reach 10% margin in that group. So where is the long-term plan for this?

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

The long-term plan is to bring it up to the performance -- a performance that gives us a very good return on capital employed. Our long-term target for this, [indiscernible] right I think it's been commuted is to do around 8% EBIT margin, because that is in a very profitable tool. It's a very strange market. We see that a lot of our competitors because -- and I can say that in confidence since we get lots of pieces every week on this, having negative profit at the moment. There will be some changes. We are working very hard together with the digitalization, the MCT offering to add growth in the aftermarket. So that could be an even more significant, part of it.

We can see that our Luwa part has gone from when we acquired it. Very, very low profitability has increased significantly over the years and is contributing very well. We see that we are gradually increasing in our configured solutions, I would say. It's still a large, complex, but for smelters, recycling, et cetera. And we are introducing that type of products, also, now on the U.S. markets.

When we have challenges, severe challenges is Asia, China, lockdowns problems, supply chain problems, where we have issues in the special complex sort of large system where they are working now on what I call the Mikropul lab to work closer with customers, so we can be extremely peaking on what we are going into. So we have a clear plan to develop this further, and it has also good reasons to believe that the work due, together with the MCT here, will -- we are sticking out, we get better paid for our project due to our future-proof solution.

So yes, I can agree. We are definitely not happy with 3%. We are continuing to work, and we will succeed in doing that.

U
Unknown Analyst

All right. Well, that sounds good.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. Dear speakers, back to you.

S
Sven Kristensson
executive

Thank you very much, everyone, for taking your time listening to us, and we wish you a continued good day. Thank you very much.