Cavotec Group AB (CCC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
February 23, 2024
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorWelcome to Cavotec Q4 Report 2023. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, David Pagels. Please go ahead.
David Pagels
executiveGood morning, and welcome to Cavotec's fourth quarter and year-end presentation. I'm David Pagels, CEO of Cavotec, and together with me, today, I have as usual, Joakim Wahlquist, Cavotec's CFO. So let us start the presentation with a short introduction of Cavotec. Cavotec has its 50 years anniversary this year, and over those 50 years we have built a strong position as a leading cleantech company with a global presence. Our offering consists of the design and delivery of solutions to electrify ports, vessels and other industrial applications like heavy duty vehicles that are used in, for example, mining industry. Our main products are Shore Power systems, motorized reels, and crane electrification with spring cable reels and also, of course, automatic mooring system. Our main attraction is that our solutions and services continue to reduce emissions in ports, terminals, and from ships, of course, in the mining industry as well as for the heavy duty vehicles. Let me now give you a quick overview of the main drivers in the market. But before we do that, I also want you to see what's new on the picture that we see right now. That is our new dot, that we have and our new production facility recently opened in Chennai in India on the east coast -- southeast coast. And I'm also happy to announce that we mounted our first cable reel actually this week. But the official integration is going to happen during the summer. So first of all, we are a leading technology and strong market position. We have that with long term customer relationship. Cleantech is part of our heritage and we have been in this industry for many decades. All markets in which we are active in are driven by strong megatrends of electrification and global need to reduce the greenhouse gases. Our solutions are crucial for reducing emissions in ports, terminals from vessels and heavy duty vehicles, et cetera. Our solutions also contributes in reducing noise in ports and terminals, which is a growing problem, not at least in the cruising terminals that are normally located quite close to the city center. We also see that demand are increasingly driven by regulations from international local authorities that want to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases as well as the noise. So it's a mix of actually the regulations, but also the drive to improve by itself. Our solutions are leading technologies that are proven, reliable, efficient, and secure, and therefore a perfect fit for our customers' requirements. So now a little bit more into the recent business and what we're doing right now. Q4 we had the strongest performance since I joined Cavotec with a record revenue and a very high business activity. A couple of weeks ago, we announced an order with a major European shipping line for the retrofitting of Shore Power solutions. The order is valued to a total of USD 5.7 million with delivery scheduled throughout 2024. The agreement entails the complete retrofit of container vessels from installation of Cavotec's cable management system into a full commissioning. As I mentioned last quarter, we also received an order worth EUR 6.7 million for PowerFit for one of the world's largest shipping companies. Deliveries already started and will take place during 2024 and into the early part of 2025. So as you can see, those deliveries are long projects that delivers over a long period of time. In the previous quarter, we also mentioned the long term service agreement with a big COSCO Group. As part of the agreement, we will provide preventive maintenance and inspection on more than 60 ocean going vessels, equipped with our Shore Power system. In addition, we have also signed an order for North American seaway operator for our vacuum mooring units worth EUR 6.4 million. And also in North America, we have signed a 3 year service level agreement with a large port in U.S., which is also a commitment that they believe in our products and trust us as a partner. We have also a few days ago signed a 2 year service agreement with APM Terminals for Port of Tanger. The agreement means that we will perform service of our 31 installed power units and 45 MoorMaster units on a regular basis, making sure that they all operate as they should and meet customers' expectations. In 2023, we put a lot of effort into developing one of the world's largest ultra-fast 3-megawatt charging system for battery-powered heavy-duty vehicles. It has now been fully validated by a major Australian mining company and we are now ready to approach other customers in this very growing and important segment. This ultra-fast charging system is, of course, one of the keys for the mining industry to be able to electrify its operations and reduce the CO2 emissions. Now, I'll move over to the performance in the fourth quarter. I am happy to see that our strategic initiatives in 2023 to improve the profitability of the order backlog are now yielding results. We report for the fourth consecutive quarter a positive EBIT result. The quarter EBIT amounted to EUR 4 million, a significant improvement from last year's minus EUR 1.6 million. The EBIT margin also increased to 7.6% in this quarter from minus 3.5% last year. After financial costs and taxes, we report a positive net profit this quarter of EUR 2.4 million, a substantial improvement from the loss in the last quarter of 2022. The improved profitability in the quarter has had a positive impact on the cash flow, which increased from minus EUR 2.8 million in the quarter in '22 to a positive EUR 5.2 million in the quarter for 2023. This progress has led to a strengthening on our financial position, but we will also have a positive impact on our financing cost going forward. So enough with that. Move into a little bit details with Joakim here. I hand over to you, Joakim.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveThank you, David, for that. Okay. We will start with the revenue and the revenue growth. As David said, it was a very strong quarter with a good revenue growth of 14.3% where we saw some currency effects impacting negatively with 2.2%. The growth here is primarily driven by deliveries of reels in the Industry segment and Shore Power solutions for container vessels in the Ports & Maritime segment. We're also pleased to see the revenue from the service operation, contributing in a positive way, which is also one of the drivers for our improved profitability. Going over to the order backlog. As you know, we have during some time now focused a lot on the profitability in our order backlog with the goal of securing a profitable growth. The reduction in the order backlog is twofold. It reflects partly our focus on taking in good orders with good profit, but also an extraordinary high order intake during 2022. We strongly believe that this focus on profitable order intake and profitability in the order backlog is a strategic move and that really is important for us to continue to drive the profitability of the company going forward. We see this also as a normalization of the order backlog, at the same time, as we see, a continued strong interest in our cleantech solution and service offerings. Moving over to EBIT. As David already has said, we reported a positive EBIT for the fourth consecutive quarter, thanks to our strategic initiatives and focus on profitability. This is very much related to the execution of these strategic initiatives in our Ports & Maritime division. Our colleagues in the Ports & Maritime division have focused on a number of change initiatives to improve profitability such as production optimization, but they still have much more work to do. We also expect the Industry division to do significant progress in this area going forward. We're moving over to the net profit. And I think here's where I'm most pleased to see that we, for the second quarter in a row, are showing a positive net result. The profit for the quarter improved to EUR 2.4 million with a small but important positive earnings per share. And it's also an important milestone for us that we have now reported a small, but nevertheless, positive profit and EPS for the full year of 2023. This trend is significant and signals that we are on the right track with the transformation of Cavotec, and it also shows our ability to grow with profit. Moving over to the cash flow development. As David pointed out earlier, we reported a positive operating cash flow in the quarter of EUR 5.2 million, thanks to higher profitability, driven then by operational efficiency improvement and a strict financial management. I'm very happy for this strong performance, and it's a clear result of a team effort across the entire company. Our leverage ratio has also moved in the right direction and improved from 2.68x to -- in Q3 to 1.29x in Q4. This is a good development for us and very positive since its strength -- that -- our strengthened financial position will also lower our financial costs going forward. Maybe it goes without saying, but this will continue to be a focus area for us going into 2024, especially working with cash flow and working capital management. We move over to say a few words on our 2 divisions, starting with Ports & Maritime, which delivers solutions for decarbonizing ports and vessels. They grew with 8.4% in the quarter. The increase was driven by improved volumes in price at 10.5%, while currency effects had a negative impact of 2.1%. Ports & Maritime has steadily improved operating results and margins now over the past 5 quarters and mainly as a result of improved operational efficiency in all areas across the division. Moving over to the Industry division. The Industry division showed a growth -- a good revenue growth in the fourth quarter versus last year, 27.3%, where 29.7% comes from volume and price, and we have some negative currency effects of 2.4%. The profitability in the division was negatively impacted by a high portion of larger projects with lower margins during the quarter. When we sum up 2023, we can see that our Industrial division have increased the pace of implementing the strategic change programs. But of course, as David said earlier, we expect them to make a ramp-up of this progress going forward. By this, I hand the relay stick back to David.
David Pagels
executiveThank you very much, Joakim, for this. We have -- as you know, we introduced during the 2023, our 6 strategic priorities or pillars and related change programs in order to lay the foundation for the profitable growth and value creation. We continue to communicate on that, and we continue to break it down in the organization to get everyone focused around those parameters, what is in it for each functions and each divisions and each Cavotec facility around the world. We feel that we have a positive momentum and we have also a strong team that is deeply engaged in this transformation. Everyone wants to work for a company that is performing and developing the way we do this is. So, of course, very positive. Let me now summarize before we open up for questions. With a good growth and strong financial performance that we now seen for 2023, I am happy with the development of Cavotec and I'm convinced we are on the right track. That's clearly evident. Perhaps even more satisfying is to see the momentum and the engagement when we meet the people throughout the organization that everyone is so committed to deliver, to overperform and really make sure that whatever we are committed to do, we're going to overdeliver. So that's really positive to see when you're meeting people across the world. We finished Q4 in '23 with a high business activity with important customer wins. That gives us a good foundation for the profited growth also to continue in 2024 and beyond. We now have a clear strategic priorities and change programs in place to build a stronger Cavotec. I am confident that Cavotec will be a key player in the transition for a more sustainable, emission free world also for the next coming 50 years. And we are only halfway. So by that I will now end our presentation for the fourth quarter and we are now ready to take some questions. You can either call in on the questions or you can write them down on the webcast.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions]
David Pagels
executiveOkay. We will read up a couple of questions here to the -- I'm just flipping through all the questions here.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveIt's good to see that we have so many questions, a lot of interest.
David Pagels
executiveSo let's start with a question here from [ Per Kullian from Enterprise ]. How do you look upon the market growth for the largest segments in 2024 and onwards? That's the first question. The second question is, there are any savings from the coordinated purchasing visible in the 2023 accounts? And how do we see this going forward? So first of all, I think we -- the first question, where do we see the market growth. It's clear that within the Ports & Maritime electrification that we see a very strong growth in requirements in the market also going forward. Not necessarily impacted so much by the overall turmoil in the economy in the world, but they're stable there. When we come to the Industry segment, it's a big push for electrification. And as you know, we are on the electrification also with the undermine -- under-surface mining equipment, drilling rigs, et cetera. We've been there for many, many years. But also now we see also electrification trends are coming also for the above service mining equipment and drilling equipment as well as, of course, the big charging trucks of -- megawatt charges that we just mentioned. So in general, very positive outlook for those. In 2023, I must say we have not seen a significant impact yet of the sourcing efforts that were done. And it's correct here. We are now coordinating our volumes that we buy from suppliers. I was out myself to visit a cable supplier that we used for many years, visited them last week, and clearly they are willing to work with us, but they also admit that we are a little bit -- we have had a fragmented approach versus them in the past and now we're going to work closer with fewer suppliers, and by that, reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency with them. So we're going to see more of that coming through in [ 2024 ]. We go -- we have here more -- another private investor saying here. Given the prevailing electrification megatrends, regulatory tailwind, what is hampering growth, et cetera, there year-over-year? When would you expect the trend to reverse? We don't really see the trend of changing into the regulations, et cetera growing. There is still a huge amount of vessels that are not yet equipped and there are also a big portion of the ports that is not equipped with Shore Power solutions yet. So we still have many years to go before that is done. There are several dates and years, should be done by 2029, 2030, but it varies a little bit. And it's also then you can have ambitious, but at the same time not everyone are able to finish them in time. Yes, how has this affected -- I get a question here, sorry. Considering the profitability requirements introduced in 2023, how has this affected the expected normal levels in the order backlog? What we can see is that we had a little bit of a tougher requirements and Joakim and myself were much involved in the deal reviews and involved in the deals. And that now is also portion why we see the improved margins that we see primarily on the Ports & Maritime side because those were the one with the bigger contracts with some lead time. But we now see that that is giving the results. So I'm confident that we're going to continue to see more of that margin improvement going forward.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes.
David Pagels
executiveAnd then we are asking for some -- also question here about our reasonable long term growth figure for the revenue. That is something which we don't really comment or speculate where we are. But we continue to see a positive outlook. Then we got another question here from [ Josh ], Stockholm School of Economics, who believe in the company and our future. But also asking the question, how big portion do we have coming from retrofits and aftermarket versus new sets? That is the figure which we, as many other companies, don't really disclose. But it's clear to know that the more we deliver out of new equipment, the bigger is our installed base of equipment around the world, of course. And of course, aftermarket is the one harvesting from the installed base. So we're growing the installed base and therefore the aftermarket will also grow. Okay, next one. Josh, also from Stockholm School of Economics. You said the profitability within the Industry segment is expected to increase. How much and why? Yes, we have done a good job, and our colleagues in the Ports & Maritime division has done a good job of implementing all our strategic priorities. And this is our biggest division and therefore, we have also put that maybe on the priority list first when we were transforming Cavotec. But our eyes are now very much on the Industry division to support the division to do the same journey as we have done with Ports & Maritime. So I don't want to say exact number and when that will happen, but we expect this to take action already during 2024. Okay. What is your overall target for steady state EBITDA or EBIT for the group? Yes, of course we want to look at long term for the group. We're looking at double-digit margins. That that is clear. We don't want to set an exact date for that target at this point. Okay. What else do we have here? Few questions from [ Juan Velo ]. Okay. Is it fair to say that the fall in historic high order book is due to a combination of an improved focus on taking profitable orders and an improved focus on manufacturing management? I.e., is the lead time having an effect also on this? Yes. I think, yes, it's a combination. We've had a very strong 2022 that was delivered out during 2023, and we have also, during 2023, focused a lot on our lead time and our productivity in our different facilities. So I would say yes to that. Then I will take next question is again from Juan here. Have I understood the correct that you will continue to invest in R&D to stay ahead in both Ports & Maritime and Industry? Yes, that is correct. And do we see a need to broaden our product and service offering going forward 2024 and 2025. Yes, that is also correct. Of course, you need to actively scan the market and see where the possibilities. We are now doing a strategy review and see where do we want to be, what is the full potential, where should we be and where do we have gaps in our portfolio? And then we put efforts into there and speed up rapid product development or signing partnership agreements or whatever. So that is clear. Is there a crossover potential between Ports & Maritime and Industry? Yes, it is. If you take the charger solutions, for instance, MCS, that is an application that is valid for ports as well as for the mining equipment. So it's the same thing. So there's a lot of crossover things that we do and our engineers are in some, but they're not always dedicated. Something -- they are dedicated to do electrification of reels. If you put a rail on a big stacker and reclaimer or you put a reel in an STS crane in a port, it's more or less the same kind of equipment. Okay. Another question from Juan here. Could you expand a bit on the development future and the potential within the Industry segment? I think we have a good cooperation with key customers within the Industry segment where we're actually developing equipment for them for the next generation's machines and products. And that is something which I'm really satisfied that we are doing in certain cases very successful, more or less getting involved with it in an early stage, developing something that actually fits in in the most effective way and meeting the requirements into their various products. Having that said, I think it still is an area we could do more. I want to see more of our engineers working with our customer engineers in order to solve problems for our customers' customers. So that's what we need to do more of. And we are there in certain areas, but we can do more across the company in general. EBIT margin in Q4 is now over 7%. Given your statements on quality of new orders, improvement is the remaining order book in the -- I'll look for the question here. Could one envisage the EBIT margin developed towards double digits? We don't really want to speculate on any timing there.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveNo. And it's a good question. We have a clear goal of going to double-digit profitability. Of course, the fourth quarter is always a strong quarter volume wise, which makes a good impact on the bottom line also. So we should not extrapolate too quickly. But we have a very clear profitability improvement trend as we can see. And we believe that we will continue with the same track in 2024.
David Pagels
executiveThen I got a question here from Anders Rudolfsson from DNB Markets. Congratulations to your great report. Are you done with the restructuring of Cavotec now? The big restructuring or the big turnaround is of course a good way to happen and we are really satisfied when we see the results in the reports and in the quarters. of course, developing a company is always an evolving things. You need to finetune, you need to adjust to the market, et cetera. But we don't foresee any restructuring programs of a massive scale or anything like that. Then there comes a question from [ Uto ] here from [ Rede Maritima ]. Are you working on any battery solutions as well or only Shore Power plugs? We are not -- I think the battery segment is extremely quickly evolving and there are giants who are onboard in that one. We are working of course with the battery manufacturers as well as with the vehicle integrators in order to get our charging stations to meet. Because there is always a communication between the battery and the vehicle itself and our power electronic solutions and our equipment, providing the power to that. But we are not really into the battery segment in that case -- sense. At the same time, there are interesting solutions around the world for battery as a storage and actually as a transportation of power as well. Windmills in the middle of the ocean out where you can really have cables. Then there are battery solutions that is being discussed. And of course, we're evolving those with our technology of transferring power from batteries into -- but not really the battery itself. And then we have another question from Juan here. And he promises the final question. I'm not sure. It's okay, Juan there -- he's asked questions here. How many manufacturing/assembly units are operational today and is there any need to expand that number and diversify it geographically any further? I think right now we have -- if you talk about the pure assembly units, we have 4 units plus then China -- India coming up now, so basically 5. And then of course you have some service facility which are more dedicated to repairing and servicing and overhauling our equipment which is -- where we don't really do any final assembly, but we are there doing full service overall capability. We have those as well in Australia, in Stockholm, et cetera and Sweden. So there are a lot of those as well. I don't foresee that we need to add on more facilities as we have now. The India facility is a fairly big one. It's a rental facility with aim to grow out of it. So it's not massive in that case, but it's big enough to substantially increase the production that we have there. And we -- I think it's not only us to say that the world is getting more and more complex. We saw what happened during the COVID pandemic situation in China where everything was blocked. We also see what happens now with the Red Sea and the tension there. So we believe that we need to closer -- we need to have possibility to produce in multiple locations. And that is clear. And also now, just since we have opened up in India, even if we have not really done the integration yet, but we see a clear and direct interest from the domestic market in India already now. So it's -- we need to be able to produce, I will probably see more of producing locally or domestically. And then we're going to remain in China. China for China, of course. And Asia is a big Ports & Maritime market definitely.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes. Maybe to expand on that question, Juan, is that, we have a possibility to scale up in our current 4 facilities. And then on top of that, we have possibility to also flexibly scale up the India facility. So we feel that we are well suited for a period ahead here on our production capabilities and capacity.
David Pagels
executiveYes. And the flexibility is also that we produce -- we have separated out the operations from the divisions and therefore we are producing for both the maritime industry and service, of course, on all locations, as much as we can, of course. Okay. We scroll down -- let me scroll down here and see. Up we go. We got a question here from Josh. So it feels that as you are focusing on the core offering, would you agree -- and then within brackets, in comparison to previously with mooring solutions, et cetera. I'm not fully agreeing with that one. Of course. Shore Power is important, because it's a hot booming driven by megatrends and regulations. At the same time, our -- 2023, we delivered out the record number of MoorMaster for installations in South America, as well as in north of Africa and even Kapellskar in Sweden. So the MoorMaster is a product that we have -- we know it takes time to sell in to the customer, because it's a big step for the customer to do. But at the same time, we also know that we have customers like APMT in Tanger, where we're working close with, who really want to drive automatization and then -- drive the automatization of loading and unloading of containers. They are extremely driven of optimizing everything there. So the ship to be stable, the ship to be moored quickly, and also, more importantly, to also make sure that the ship and the vessel -- container vessel really remains super stable. As well as where we have the customer in South America who is so keen on using both mooring lines and MoorMasters in order to be able to keep the port open under severe conditions. And when we met them, they say, if we're able to keep our port open one week more per year, it's fantastic. So that's what we're talking about. We talked about a very optimized logistics setup with all the container terminals. And there we are playing a vital role with our MoorMaster. Also, don't forget that our MoorMaster is also then generating a very good service level agreements where its products that need to work 24/7 and therefore we -- we're there to support the customer.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.
Karl Bokvist
analystMy first one is on the timing of deliveries from the backlog. Now, we saw a significant step up in sales in Q4 versus Q3. If we then look into Q1 or the first half, based on the backlog that you now have, do you have any more sizable deliveries expected to take place? Otherwise, we would usually see a seasonality where the first quarter is in absolute terms, a smaller one than the fourth?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes, there is no significant change in our seasonality from one year to the next. So if we're talking about Q4, Q4 is usually a very strong quarter. And so that needs to be kept into consideration.
Karl Bokvist
analystOkay, understood. And then on the deliveries here. At the start of 2023 there was -- you commented that you had some, if we say, legacy orders with less favorable pricing, where are we now in terms of those orders being delivered from the backlog and margins on new orders?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes, I would say now we have some less than 10% of our current order book that is, what we would call from old orders. But taking into consideration also that the process that we have put in place for a more profitable order backlog is not the only improvement activity we're doing.
Karl Bokvist
analystUnderstood. So then just -- if we look into 2024 now, you've delivered a very strong organic sales growth throughout this year. Or essentially organic sales growth has been strong since start of 2022, but the backlog has been down year-over-year since Q2 '23. And I understand the rationale behind it. But how should we think about potential for sales growth in 2024, given the focus on more profitable orders and the kind of backlog support we might see?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveI think like David said here earlier also, we have in Q4 a lot of customer activity and it's very strong continued interest in our solution and the trends are really there to support us. So I think with that, what we can say is that we're still continuing to look very -- look at the future growth with -- positively.
David Pagels
executiveWorth to mention there is, as also been presented in other Q reports by other companies over the last few weeks here. Of course, the overall uncertainty in the world leads to somewhat delayed decisions when they're doing investments and when they're going to do. So it takes a little bit longer time. It's not that they are gone, but it takes a little bit longer time. And that is what we see as well in our area.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveCorrect.
Karl Bokvist
analystUnderstood. And then a couple more if I may, here. And the industry profitability in the fourth quarter, specifically down versus the third one. Is this mainly because of what you write in the presentation here about the higher share of deliveries related to larger projects, or is there anything else here that we should consider going into 2024?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveNo, this is exactly like you say, Karl. So this comes specifically from some larger deliveries with lower margins.
Karl Bokvist
analystUnderstood. So then on the profitability improvements here, the Ports & Maritime segment, you do say why -- perhaps this one was the first one to really improve and expect the Industry a bit later, and rationale behind it. But more about the dynamics here. What kind of levers have you pulled to really kind of see this clear step up in profitability? And what can we expect going forward from Ports & Maritime? Because it's a strong trend. But I can imagine that you have even higher ambitions on profitability in Ports & Maritime.
David Pagels
executiveYes, good question there. I think I'm really pleased with the improvement from '22 to '23, considering 22 was really tough year for Ports & Maritime. But of course, even if I'm pleased, pleased is not the same thing as satisfied. So of course, we will continue to the journey there. But keep in mind that when we talk about Ports & Maritime, a normal from when we're signing an order to the first delivery is 9 to 12 months. And we have had, me and Joakim now since the last year, a full focus on the deal reviews and also hammering down the material costs to make sure that we have good quality in the [ bits ], so that we know what we're dealing with. That is what we've done specifically in Ports & Maritime, and those orders are now starting to be delivering out. So I'm quite positive that we're going to continue to see the trend for Ports & Maritime. In addition to that, when we're also then increasing our efforts on sourcing, as I mentioned before, it's a little bit of shame to say, but it's a little bit untapped territory where we haven't really used our Cavotec muscles and purchasing power at all as efficient as we should. And, therefore, we now have setting up that team of people and we have recruited in people from externally that has been dealing with these kind of commodity structure worldwide for -- since the last 20 years. So [ Wendy ] is coming onboard and taking care of that commodity management structure, which I'm also very positive towards that, how that should develop. Okay?
Karl Bokvist
analystAnd my final one here is perhaps more a question to you, Joakim. But the cash flow generation now, we've seen it trending well here as well, with positive operating cash flow both in Q3 and Q4. So what more can you do on working capital and so on, and maintain this very good trend in cash conversion also at the start of the year, considering how perhaps maybe it's more about the second half of the year being seasonally wise a better cash flow period?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes. It's correct that the beginning of the year is usually a little bit weaker on the cash flow side. So that is what we would usually historically see. Same and stronger at the end of the year. But we are working very, very hard on our working capital management, both on the collections and after a normalization here, also on the payables, which we discussed about before in previous calls. Now, that the procurement team also have more fruitful discussions together with the suppliers to discuss conditions there. While at the same time we're together with operations, finances strongly supporting now to make sure that the inventory management is getting even more tight than it has been before. So I still feel that we have a good potential of being even leaner than we are today.
David Pagels
executiveWe have a couple of questions here again. You talk a lot about -- this is from Josh from Stockholm School of Economics. You talk a lot about innovation, the people, the culture. Could you develop on changes here since I've arrived? Yes, we had -- in 2022, we really had a financial situation which made us very restricted in what it did in terms of new product development. Same thing for 2023, we had to more or less cut down on a lot of things. That's just the way in order to get the company up to the level where we are right now. In 2024, we have now set aside, and that's included in the body for 2024, we have set aside money for R&D, because we need to speed that up. We have lost a little bit there. We need to catch that up. And, of course, at the same time, it's important that we do it in an efficient way, in a controlled way, so that we actually get the maximum out of the money that we put into the [ R&D ]. So therefore, myself and Joakim are also then involved in that process, sitting with the engineers and new product development team here, so that we're monitoring and making sure that we get the best bang for the money. In terms of people and culture, both me and Joakim attended a sales conference that we had in the company for a couple of -- 3 years ago -- 3 weeks ago.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes.
David Pagels
executiveAnd I must say it's really fantastic to see the momentum of people. It's been a couple of tough years. Yes. And there were some things that needed to be cleaned up and done. At the same time, you now see that people are happy again. They are motivated, they are eager to meet customers. They are [ passionated ]. And there were a couple of guys standing there being proud of showing us what they have developed for a magnetic clutch and bringing results in the production. And just with a super passion showing us what they've developed in a record time. This is the thing that you cannot really demand people to do. You need to have people who wants to do it that way and really driven by their own passion. Those are the individuals that we need to see, and we need to get more out of, Of course. Okay?
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveWe have anything else, or was that the last question?
David Pagels
executiveLet's see. I think we have more or less -- we have a question here from Anders Rudolfsson, asking how we should -- how will capacity look like in 3 years perspective? It's of course an interesting question, if we could get the answer to that one. What we have said is that we are now going to take a new grip on our strategic plan and we also would like them to come back with some kind of, of course, communicated targets for the coming years. That is the homework that we need to do so that we can give more guidance. Where do we see? But it's important to do the job properly so that we see the full potential of Cavotec and analyze where are the markets where we should be? And at the same time saying, where are the markets where we're -- sorry -- we shouldn't be there. So that job is now restarting. Yes, we will come back to you with a more our view on where we see the company in the perspective going forward. Okay, I think we have --
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveWe have taken all the questions.
David Pagels
executiveWe have taken most of the questions here, which I found. So in that case, Joakim, should we conclude here? And we are always available for questions and if --
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveIf anything else comes up.
David Pagels
executiveIf anything else comes up as well, of course. So in that case, I thank you for your time. Good questions, good interaction. We always enjoy this, of course. And therefore, and after that, we're looking forward to brief you when it's time for the Q1 report.
Joakim Wahlquist
executiveYes. Thank you very much. Have a good day.
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