Bergman & Beving AB (publ) (BERGB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Bergman & Beving Q1 2025 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to speakers CEO, Magnus Soderlind; and CFO, Peter Schon. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. This is Magnus Soderlind, and welcome to our financial report for the first quarter presentation here. And together with me on this call, I also have our CFO, Peter Schon. And we will, as always, have a Q&A in the end session. And you also have the opportunity to put some questions live here that we will take care of them after we have made this presentation. So I will then start with some highlights. So the first quarter, we increased earnings, EBITA. We increased the profitability that we measure as profitable working capital. And adjusted, we also increased earnings per share. So overall, I think we did a good quarter, despite still tough underlying market conditions. So we increased the turnover by 5%, and this is driven by acquisition and selective -- some of our companies has also have had an increase in turnover. But on an aggregated level, organically, we had a small decline actually in the quarter, and this is reflecting the market conditions, I would say. So despite this, we increased the EBITA by 9%, and we now have 22 consecutive quarters with improved profits. And we also strengthened the EBITA margin. So it's now 9.9% compared with 9.5% the previous Q1 quarter. And we also had an increase in EBIT and EBT of 3%. The difference from EBITA, the 9% to EBIT is, of course, reflected of a higher amortization since we have acquired a lot of companies during the last quarters. And the EBT is partly reflected that we have some extra financial costs during the quarter as well. So the profit of working capital continues to increase. We have made a lot of efforts during the last years to improve capital efficiency. And that, together with increased EBITA has increased the profit of working capital ratio with 5%, and we are now at 32%. So we are on the way to the 45% that we have as a target for next fiscal year. And also earnings per share rolling 12 adjusted then for the goodwill we took last quarter improved to SEK 8.3 compared with SEK 7.4, and that's before dilution then. As announced in Q4, we signed an agreement to divest Skydda Nordic operations to Ahlsell. This deal was condition that the authorities in the Nordic country approved these divestments, and that has now been improved. So the physical kind of -- the physical takeover took place July 1 here. I briefly mentioned about the market. It still remains sluggish, both, I would say, within the construction or in the industry sector. It's variation across the different subsegments. But on an aggregated level, we don't see any signs, unfortunately, that neither the construction or the industry sector is picking up. It's more like a steady-state situation. As we have communicated before, we are not so exposed to new building of housing. So there are some pickup in that sector, but that doesn't kind of affect our underlying markets that our companies are addressing in a big way. So we continue to kind of work with our company-by-company approach related to the capital allocation model. So we have different recipes for different companies. Some companies have a good underlying market, have good returns and also have some growth opportunities. So we invest in growth in those companies. And some companies have a lower profitability and tougher markets. And there, we work with efficiency measurement like cost reductions and mix improvements to kind of improve that company specifically. We have continued to acquire companies in line with our acquisition strategy and targets. So we have made 4 acquisitions so far this year, 3 during the Q1 quarter and actually 1 acquisition yesterday. And those 4 together represent an annual sales of SEK 300 million. So we don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to deliver on the target that we had set, SEK 50 million to SEK 80 million in earnings per annum in acquisition volumes. And we are well on that path currently. So looking into the different acquisition we made. The first one we made was a Finnish company called Ontec, that's within the Safety Technology division. It's quite a small company, a turnover of SEK 45 million, but this is the company now in the group with the highest profit margin as such. And it has a couple of hundred percent of profitable working capital. This is a company part -- they are building systems that are -- the software component is an important part of these solutions where they make measurements and documentation of transportations of liquids and typically then fire sensitive equipments or explosive sensitive -- sorry, liquids. And this is something that they have built a fantastic system where they have built a very strong position in the Finnish market with big chemical companies as the main customer base. And we also acquired a company called Raintite in the U.K. a little bit bigger company. They have a turnover of SEK 90 million. They have a profit margin above 15%. We have communicated that earlier that we have the acquisition strategy to only acquire highly profitable companies, and we have set the hurdle at -- sorry, 15%. So this is also in line with that target level. And also, we have communicated that part of our acquisition strategy is to acquire companies with a profit of working capital margin above the 45%, and they are well above that range. And Raintite is a leading manufacturer of PVC-laminated steel products that is used in roof applications such as guttering and so forth. And this is typically applied in big commercial buildings, big warehouses, stadiums like the Wimbledon Stadium, for example, Raintite has delivered to that. So that is kind of more addressing to big commercial building segment, and they have come in, in a very good way in the group so far. And the pipeline for that company looks very promising as well. We also made a Swedish acquisition in Q1 that was Mann & Co. And this was an add-on acquisition to a company in the group called Germ. And this is SEK 30 million turnover with a profit margin of roughly 15%, and then having a profit of working capital of SEK 45 million. So this is in line also with our acquisition criteria. And as I said earlier, we actually encourage many of our companies with good profit levels to look into growth, both organically, but also through add-on acquisitions. So this is an example of a profitable group company, Germ, who last year bought another company called Sandberg and now they bought Mann & Co. So now they really have a leading position across the whole of Sweden in supplying houses and couplings for fluid handling applications. So very niche market, but good profitability. So this will enhance the market position of Germ in the Swedish market as such. And as announced yesterday, we acquired a company yesterday, H C Coils also based in England with a turnover of SEK 130 million. Profit above 15% and also profit and working capital above 45%. This is a company who produce made-to-order heat exchanges used for temperature control, air conditioning and refrigeration. So the customers here are typical big industries. It could be food industries. It could be pharmaceutical industries where they have a heat exchanger somewhere in the -- typically in the production or the warehouse areas. So these are tailor-made to each of those specific situations. So this is a really niche company, and they have a very strong position in the U.K. market if you really would have those customized heat exchanger. So all in all, this is a total annual revenue of SEK 300 million. And that, I would say, is a strong start for this fiscal year, already made 4 acquisitions and acquiring annual revenue of SEK 300 million. And overall, I would say, we have continued a good pipeline in many cases. So I expect us to make additional acquisitions along this fiscal year. So as mentioned earlier, we now have 22 consecutive quarters with increased EBITA, and this period mostly covers the COVID area, and then the kind of tough markets that we have had in the Nordics and also in other European countries for the last 3 years. So despite that, we have been able to actually increase profits quarter-on-quarter, and that is the ambition we have also going forward. And if you look at this period, since Q3 fiscal year 2019, '20, we have an CAGR EBITA growth of 20%. And also, you can see on the red line here is the EBITA margin that we have gone from 4% now up to just below the 9%, 9.9%. And that is something we don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to continue on this journey going forward, both through acquisitions that will enhance the margin, of course, and the absolute EBITDA, but also to, over time, see some organic growth in profit and in profit margin as well. If we look at the revenue, we had this 5% revenue growth this quarter. But as you can see on the right side of the graph here, it's actually 11% from acquisitions. And then we have a 3% organic decrease, and then we have a negative currency effect of 3%. So this revenue growth is mainly due to acquisition. But once again, we have companies current organically growing, but on an aggregated level, it's down. And here, of course, Luna is still a big portion of the total revenue, and they still face some tough markets. So that's, I would say, the biggest explanations if we look at the organic development in the group. We set the target to reach 75% on products in this fiscal year, and we have now achieved that in the Q1 quarter this fiscal year already. That has been an important reason and cause that we have been able to improve gross margin over time. You can see here that we, in beginning 2021, was at 30%, and we are now just below 48% in gross margin. And this is a result that we, for several quarters and actually several years, worked with phasing out high-volume, low-margin product that is mainly -- this development is mainly organically driven. And actually, some of the acquisitions we made recently has a lower gross margin than the group average. So even if the EBITA margin is above the 15%, some other companies actually have a gross margin below the group average. And that is something that has affected the gross margin in a negative way. But on the EBITA level, we had a positive effect of that. So as communicated earlier as well, you shouldn't expect a big increase in the gross margin from where we are today going forward, but you should expect an improved EBITA margin instead. So if we look at the 3 targets, we set is that we should reach SEK 500 million and an EBIT margin of 10% during this fiscal year. And then we should reach the 45% profit of working capital next fiscal year. And as I said earlier, we are now at 32%. We don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to reach the 45% here in next fiscal year. But as we said in the report, we are now selling [Technical Difficulty] in Nordics, and we will then lose SEK 45 million. So that will make it very challenging to reach the SEK 500 million this fiscal year. And that will also affect the EBITDA margin target. So we now expect to reach those targets, but some quarters later than end this fiscal year. With that said, I hand over to Peter to tell us something about the EPS improvement.

Thank you, Magnus. Yes, if we look at the EPS, it amounted to SEK 2.10 in the quarter, and it was an improvement towards last year, but a slight decrease from the Q4 number that was SEK 2.30, and that was mainly due to a slightly higher finance costs. But if you look at the rolling 12, we increased the EPS to SEK 8.3 from last quarter, SEK 8.15. So still on a good level going forward. If we move into the inventory, the inventory amounted to -- yes, SEK 1,158 million compared to SEK 1,127 million last year. So it was a slight increase, but that was mainly acquisition-driven. Organically, the inventory reduction was SEK 30 million. And that also increased the ITO. That's almost on the pre-COVID level now. But there is still, we have quite a few companies that need to address the inventory level still. So the inventory reduction will continue, but of course, in a slower pace than earlier. And if we look at the cash flow, it was a good cash flow. It's seasonally high cash flow in this quarter. So it was to be expected, I would say. It was slightly below last year, but that was mainly driven to a more positive effect from reduced working capital last year. And as I said in previous slides as well, we do have a slower pace in inventory reduction. And you can see that in the graph in the rolling 12, the cash flow trend that it has gone down a bit. And there we're through the easy reductions when it comes to inventory. But still, we do have inventory reductions ahead of us, but in a slower pace. And if we look at acquisition, net debt, it also increased from almost SEK 1 billion to SEK 1.4 billion. And that is, of course, mainly acquisition-driven. We did SEK 580 million compared to last year. In the quarter, it increased from SEK 1,278 million to SEK 1,412 million. But that was also acquisition-driven with SEK 260 million in the quarter. So quite a lot of acquisition. And the net debt to EBITDA, it's up to 2.5, and yes, we feel that it's a comfortable level. But still, we do have some cash in from the Skydda sale. And then, of course, we did one acquisition. So I expect that to be reduced somewhat to next quarter. But the acquisition target remains intact. And the pipeline, as Magnus said earlier, is very strong. So we'll continue to do acquisition. This is nothing that puts a limit to the acquisitions. So back to Magnus.

Yes. So digging into the 3 divisions, the Core Solutions had a very strong quarter. ESSVE is the biggest company in this division, and they have implemented 3 new large customers in -- that's in the Nordic. And in those agreements, you -- and that's market standard, you basically take back the competitors' volume from the shelves and then replace it with ESSVE. So that, of course, had a positive effect on the top line of ESSVE. But margin-wise, it has a negative effect because those takeback volumes is typically something you need to buy back from the customers that there's kind of inventory the other cost levels. And that is something that is very difficult to sell out to a decent margin. So that has affected ESSVE during the Q4 quarter as well as this Q1 quarter, but that is now taken out. So we expect now to have ESSVE back on the previous gross margin levels going forward, and that will help also the division margin-wise, even if they have a good margin increase in this quarter. As you can see, it's 11.9% compared with 11.6%, but underlying then it's even better if you deduct these takeback volumes from ESSVE. I mentioned Raintite. This was acquired and in April, it will be part of Core Solutions and is part of Core Solutions. And here, we had a very good revenue increase of 20% and also an EBITA increase of 22%. So we had a very positive momentum in this division. And it's -- they have acquired some companies. They have Spraylat, they have Raintite, they have made Levypinta in the recent quarters here, and they have come in, in a very good way in the group. And you can see that on the EBITA rolling 12 development down to the right, and also had a positive effect on the revenue of rolling 12, as you can see to the left there. And now as I said earlier, the H C Coils will be part of the Core Solution, and that will continue to add on to the good development of this division going forward. If we look at the Safety Technology, this is the division where the Skydda company is part of. And as I said, the divestment is now completed. We expect this to be a win-win for Bergman & Beving for Ahlsell and also for the employees of Skydda. Skydda will now be a part of Ahlsell as a separate entity, continue to selling the PPE products that our product companies is providing, but Skydda will now be in the Ahlsell context, and that will help Skydda and our product companies to increase the volumes within the Ahlsell system. So we expect to have a positive effect over time on our PPE product companies when now Skydda is part of the Ahlsell Group. We also communicated that the Skydda had an international operation, and that will stay within the group. And that is an important channel for our PPE product companies outside the Nordics. So they will continue to act as a wholesaler for our product companies outside the Nordics in this Skydda international context. I said it earlier, so the divested part, the Skydda Nordic has an annual earning of SEK 45 million, and that will kind of be deducted from Bergman & Beving going forward. And that we will have -- and we had got SEK 300 million in EV for the Skydda Nordic business. And we have an earn-out arrangement with a potential of maximum SEK 80 million that will be settled in 1 year time from now. So we still don't have a forecast on the level of that, but we expect at least to get some earn-out from that setting. And as communicated last quarter, we had a goodwill write-down of SEK 270 million in the last quarter. And we also have communicated that we then expected a restructuring cost of roughly SEK 70 million. And now 1 quarter later, we have more or less a confirmation of that figure. So that is something that you should expect to have been affecting this quarter. And then here also the Ontec company, as I talked about earlier, is now part of this group. And that will, of course, given the margin, help this division going forward, increasing the profit margin as such. So here, we have a revenue increase of 4% and an EBITA increase of 3%. This is a division that hasn't been as acquisition active as the Core Solutions. It's actually basically Ontec that is a new platform within this division. And then we made some add-on acquisition to this SIS Group, the signage group. And last one was Collinder that is part of that. But I expect this division to be more active in the acquisition space going forward to also support the development of this division. So the EBITA margin is quite flat. It's 8.1% in this quarter compared with last quarter of 8.2%. And lastly then, we have the Industrial Equipment division. And this division, Luna is part of this division. And as communicated earlier, they still face a tough margin. This is a big company, and they have an organic decline. So that is affecting this division as well actually on a group level given its size. In this division, we have this tool company called Teng Tools, and they have some dependency on the dollar development, and that has affected Teng Tools in a negative way during this quarter. And they also face some challenges in the general demand across their markets. And we also have Polartherm, that mobile heater that is making -- selling mobile heaters to many rental companies that renting out to construction sites. And during the -- when the underlying market is weak, rental companies typically don't buy anything. So that has partly affected the Polartherm in a negative way. But here, we see some positive signs now that the market seems to pick up a little bit. So hopefully, we will see a better development of this company going forward. But we have some very good signs as well. As I said earlier, we have some companies in the group that have a very positive development. And the U.K. companies, A.T.E. and Orbital that we acquired during the last 2 years have a very positive development also this quarter. And the order book for those companies is very strong. So I don't see any reason why they shouldn't continue to deliver on a very good level going forward in the next quarters. I mentioned the Germ Group that acquired Sandberg as an add-on some quarters ago, and they now acquired Mann & Co in [ Medis ]. So that will be a good add-on acquisition to Germ going forward. So here, we actually had a revenue decline compared with last quarter and also a small decline in the EBITA level, SEK 45 million compared with SEK 46 million, and this is mainly due to the lower sales and some gross margin effect, partly due to exchange rates, but we have leveled that out partly offset that with some -- with lower operational expenses, but not to the extent maybe that we should have done. So we will continue to work on operational efficiency in some of the companies here, including Luna to make sure we get to a better position going forward. One positive thing is that the EBITA margin increased to 10.5% compared with 10.1%, and this is actually the division with the highest EBITA margin. But with some good acquisitions going forward, I don't see any reason why this margin shouldn't increase. So with that said, the way to the 500/10/45, yes, we need to postpone that some quarters, and then I relate to the 500/10. The 45% next fiscal year is still in play. It's not a postponement in -- it's just a delay in a couple of quarters, and then partly due to that we lose SEK 45 million in EBITA after the divestment of Skydda to Ahlsell. I talked about the underlying market. I said that we don't see any solid indication that neither the industrial nor the construction market will pick up in a big way in the near term. So I'm now looking at that we need to wait at least to the year-end. And hopefully then in the beginning here of next year, we will see some market recovery. But let's see, the next month will be very interesting. If we look at the Q1 quarter, I would say the last month was the best and the strongest month actually. But let's see. I don't see that as a clear sign that the market is picking up, but it will be very interesting to see the next coming month, how the market reacts actually. So we will continue to do what we always do, focus on profit expansion before revenue growth. We will continue to have a company-by-company approach guided by the capital allocation model that we use, the focus model. And we will continue to support our companies in their development through our Bergman & Beving toolbox. And we will continue to acquire highly profitable B2B companies, having a strong position in the growing niche market. But given the conditions, we have some specific themes across the group, and we still continue to work on capital efficiency and then specifically the stock reduction. So we continue to work on the ITO and have focus across many other companies to improve that, and that will release some cash over time. As Peter was saying, we have taken the low-hanging fruits, but there are still some work to be done, but you should expect a slower pace in the inventory stock reduction going forward, but there should be an improvement in the ITO over time. We continue to have a tight cost control. We have had that for many quarters now, and we make some cost reductions still in some companies. But we try to balance that relating to the last point here that we try to ensure that we're able to capitalize on an improved economic situation. So we don't do stupid things now undermining company's possibility to leverage when the market pick up. And we also have a strong focus on gross margin protection. I earlier said you shouldn't expect a gross margin increase. We have a level now that we need to protect, I would say. And that is done by negotiating with suppliers. It's about making sure we adjust prices to the customers when that is necessary. So it's really a continuous work that need to be a big focus on to make sure that we don't undermine the gross margin going forward as such. So with that said, I think overall, we are quite satisfied with the quarter. We have been able to increase the profit, the margin and the earnings per share, despite we have faced another quarter with tough market conditions. That has been -- we have been able to deliver those kind of results, thanks to that we have been working with the companies that we have in the portfolio, I think, in a good way in combination that we have been able to close acquisitions cases with very good margins and profit expansion opportunities. So I'm positive that we should continue to be able to work in that way going forward and continue to deliver a good development on a group level as such. So with that said, we are ready to open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken.

Just starting off in maybe most relevant to Industrial Equipment on the market side, there you say it's varying between the companies and while we might not see an uptick in the near term. Have you gotten any signals that would give you confidence that we are mostly bottoming out or when that could happen in that segment?

That's a very good question. I mean what I see today, I would say it has leveled out, but it's very uncertain where will be -- what will be the end result of the ongoing discussion about between Trump and EU related to import taxes and those type of things and the effect that could have on the economy, underlying economy. We said that we have a very limited exposure to North America directly. But indirectly, of course, we can be affected if the general economy gets affected of those some final agreements in the end. But what I see today, if it will continue as is, I expect this to have bottom out sort of and that we start to see a slow pickup.

Understood. And then moving on to Core Solutions. I was wondering if you could maybe help a bit on, so to say, the underlying margin if we adjust for the takeback volumes in ESSVE, how material that is because you still had a margin improvement year-over-year. So then the underlying margin, so to say, would seem to be quite good.

Yes. We haven't communicated the exact figures, but there is a couple of millions related to the takebacks, both in the Q4 quarter as well as the Q1 quarter. So if you look at the ESSVE, it's not a double-digit effect on the gross margin, but there are some single-digit figures on the ESSVE margin that this takeback has the impact of that takeback.

Understood. And moving on to -- you mentioned in the report that your product companies have a better opportunity to increase their volumes now that has been divested. Could you maybe go into a bit -- give it a bit of nuance and how, so to say, quickly/easy it is for your companies to do that after the divestment?

Sorry, I didn't -- can you please repeat the question?

Yes. You wrote -- you mentioned in the report that your product companies have better opportunities to increase volumes now that Skydda has divested. If you could give some nuance to that?

Yes. There are some effects that we expect. One is that we get internal champions through the Skydda organization within Ahlsell. We have a very good cooperation between Skydda and our product companies over time. And that will help us in the Ahlsell system to kind of market and push for our product companies within the Ahlsell system. Then it's a big difference within Ahlsell if you get in their central warehouses. They have warehouses in all countries like in Sweden and Norway. And if you get into the Ahlsell warehouse, any Ahlsell outlet can buy that product. And by now, Ahlsell getting bigger volumes around our product companies through the acquisition of Skydda, many of our product companies, PPE product companies will be then into their central warehouse structure. So it will be much easier to get out in the outlets based on that many now our product companies are part of their central warehousing structure. So that will also help our product companies to grow within the Ahlsell system. Once again, I said -- you shouldn't expect an immediate effect. But over time, I feel confident that, that will be beneficial for our PPE product companies.

Yes, very clear. And just a last question from me regarding inventories, which, of course, have reduced quite a lot. And when you mentioned that there still are a couple of companies where you still need to address inventories, is it -- what is it that you -- that's making it difficult for those companies? Is it something regarding their model or culture or what -- or is it different for each company?

I mean the conditions for our companies in relation to the reduced stock is very different. Some companies are buying products from Asia. Longer delivery times tend to be bigger batches compared with those companies sourcing from locally or in Europe. So that is one aspect that affects the potential in reducing inventory. It's also the kind of -- if you compare, for example, ESSVE with many, many different fastening products in the assortment with some of the companies that maybe only have 10 different products. The number of SKUs is also make it more complex to have an inventory reduction made in an easy way. So it's really to have a company, company approach here and make the best of each specific company situation in those efforts.

The next question comes from Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank.

I hope you can hear me.

Clear. Good morning.

Just a couple of questions from my side as well. So you're mentioning that you're seeing some stabilization in the demand. Could you perhaps maybe provide more color on which specific industries or customer segments showed improved demand during the final month of this Q1 quarter? And relatedly, how are inventory levels looking at the distributors or retailers' level across your key markets? Are you seeing any restocking activity there? And has this trend continued into the next quarter?

I think I need to answer that in some different dimension. If I start with the geographical dimension, Finland has been the weakest market for many quarters, especially within the construction sectors. I would say there, we see some indication that we have leveled out and some indication that it's picking up, especially within the construction sector. We saw some signs in Sweden, I think, in the last quarter, it was picking up, whereas Norway was a little bit slower, I would say. If we look at the U.K., overall, but I think that's more based on what niche markets we are addressing through our companies. We saw some positive signs there in many of those markets that we are operating in. So if we look at the industrial sector, it's very, very difficult to generalize because there's so many different markets there. But for example, one of the segments we are active is within the automotive. And there, we don't see any pickup at all currently, I would say. So that's a segment, I would say, that we generally think is a little bit weaker actually than we've seen in previous quarters. But in some industrial market, we see some pickup. So then you really need to get into each specific industry segment. But as I said before, on a general level, we saw some positive signs in June, but I think it's way too early to extrapolate that and think that this has been a turning point. If we talk to our customers, and you're referring to the stocking level at resellers, we -- they don't indicate to us that the market is picking up, and they see those signs. So they are not building up the stock currently. They are really in a mode of wait and see.

I see. Perfect, Magnus. That's very clear. And could you maybe perhaps give us how big is your exposure to this automotive industry?

No, it's very, very limited. I don't have the exact figure, but I guess 1%, 2%. It's...

Yes. Okay. Perfect. That's very clear. And moving forward then, I guess, with the takeback effects now done in ESSVE, et cetera, do you think that given that the market may be stabilizing, let's see how it develops. What's your thoughts on the top line organic sales growth going forward for the coming 3 to 6 months going forward?

Yes. As I said on the first or the second slide, I currently don't expect to have organic pick up until the year-end. So for this quarter and the next quarter, I don't calculate that we should see an organic top line growth actually.

And given that -- I assume that has some positive effects on top line, but negative effects on profits, you think that, that could accelerate further into the next quarter, the organic sales growth then?

I mean, if you look at our 22 consecutive quarters, we increased profit. If you look at the latest quarter where we have faced tougher markets, it has been very acquisition-driven or profit growth as such. And I expect the acquisitions to be a very important part for us going forward in the next coming quarter as well to be able to expand the EBITA. So once again, I don't expect a big contribution organically to our profit growth in the coming quarters.

No. Perfect. That's very clear. And just a last question from my side. Just something back, you're mentioning the Swedish construction industry is showing some signs of maybe improving market, but I know it's too early to say, but do you think that's partly driven by the [ route ] deduction that we have seen in Sweden?

We have seen some positive effect of this [ route ], but maybe not to the level that we expected. I mean I think the general view was in Sweden, you had those tax reductions on [ route ]. You had lower taxes generally and the interest rate was going down. And you expect the consumers to start to be active and be the vehicle for the pickup of the general economy. But we haven't seen that to the extent we expected, even if we have some higher activity related to this [ routes ] that is then affected ESSVE in a good way, but maybe not to the extent that we expected.

Got it. So potentially maybe some increased effect from that going forward potentially then?

Yes.

[Operator Instructions]

Yes. So I think that was the last of that. We have some written questions as well. And the first one is whether we expect an increase in EBITDA quarter-by-quarter even though we have divested Skydda. I don't know if you want to comment on that, Magnus or...

Yes. I mean we will have the effect of this divestment from this quarter and going forward. So we aim to compensate for that, but I think it's too early to say. We have the ambition, but it will be a challenge. Over time, we will improve the margin. We will improve the EBITDA. We have now some extra cash based on the divestment that we will allocate acquiring highly profitable niche companies going forward. But then to judge when in time we will be able to make those acquisitions is always difficult to say. We have a good pipeline, but it's very difficult experience-wise to forecast exactly when those will materialize. If we will be able to materialize them in the near term, that will, of course, be beneficial to compensate for the lost EBITA of Skydda, and that is the ambition we have. But if we'll be able to materialize that, that is too early to say at this point in time.

Good. And the next question is if we have any numbers of how the employee in industrial and construction sector developed in the quarter?

No, we don't have those figures yet. The last figures that was published is relating to the Q1 quarter. So we haven't got the Q2 quarters yet. So hopefully, we will have that in August, September.

And another question is whether one should expect the M&A pace to pick up after the Skydda proceeds come in or if it's unrelated to that, since the balance sheet is not a bottleneck?

Yes. I mean, we are very cautious on the quality of the companies we acquire. We don't want to push ourselves to make acquisitions that we don't think is long-term good fit with the group. So with that said, you shouldn't expect us to be so eager to acquire companies rapidly to compensate for the earning loss from the Skydda divestment. So we will be very rigorous in making sure that the acquisition we made is in line with the acquisition strategy and criteria we have. With that said, we, of course, have and strengthen our acquisition capacity, but that we started to do already 2, 3 quarters ago. And that reason and logic at that point in time was that we will increase the acquisition pace over time. And hopefully, we will see the results of that already during this fiscal year. But that is more related that we have expanded our capacity around acquisitions. We made 4 acquisitions so far this year. That is a higher than we had the last fiscal years, and we have a strong pipeline. But once again, it's very difficult to forecast when those cases will materialize. So I don't exclude that we will, during this fiscal year, end up with a higher acquisition volume that we have had during the last years, but that's still too early to say if that will materialize or not.

Good. And the next question was regarding the SEK 70 million in restructuring costs, assuming that they will be taken in Q2. And the main portion of it will definitely be taken in Q2. So -- and that was the last question we had. So we thank you all for participating, and looking forward to meeting you in a quarter's time again.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.