Cavotec Group AB (CCC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Cavotec Q2 Report 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, David Pagels, and CFO, Joakim Wahlquist. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Cavotec's second quarter presentation. I'm David Pagels, the CEO of Cavotec. And together with me today, I have, as usual, Joakim Wahlquist, Cavotec's CFO. I would like to start with a short introduction. For those of you who are not familiar with us, Cavotec was founded 50 years ago by 3 entrepreneurs in Sweden. Since the foundation, Cavotec is focused on delivering innovative engineered solutions that enhance safety, reliability and performance in areas, such as ports and industries where our electrical cable reels or radio remote system controls are needed. Our products enable decarbonization of ports, mines and other industrial applications. As part of our global expansion, Cavotec moved to Switzerland in 2007. Last year, we successfully completed the move of our registered office back to our roots in Sweden. As part of that transaction, we relisted at NASDAQ Stockholm with our new Swedish parent company. This move brings us closer to our shareholders based in Sweden and will enable us to become more efficient and agile. Today, 50 years after our foundation, we are present across the globe with over 700 employees. So I would like to comment on the highlights in the second quarter. Both order intake and revenue developed well. Order intake grew over 11% and the revenue increased by more than 25%. Our order backlog is now record high, which reflects the strong demand for our products and services. Despite the strong revenue performance, I'm not satisfied with the results for the quarter. Profitability has been negatively affected by mix effects, partly caused by delayed deliveries for a few larger shore power projects with low margins. These orders were signed already in 2024. However, I would like to underline that we are confident with the margins within the order backlog for the second half of 2026. In the beginning of the year, we announced that we will implement cost savings measures during the year to reduce our cost by a total of EUR 3 million with a full effect early in 2027. During the first half of the year, we incurred restructuring costs of EUR 1.1 million. The measures that we have taken during the quarter include the closing of the Rotterdam office and moving the remaining headquarter functions from Lugano in Switzerland to Stockholm. Another important measure is the shift of the group financing from Switzerland to Sweden. During the quarter, we entered into a new 5-year financing agreement with SEB in Sweden, which gives us more favorable terms compared to the previous financing in Switzerland. During the quarter, we have presented several significant contracts that demonstrate the demand for our products and services. Among all, we renewed our service agreements with the Port of Salalah in Oman for another 2 years. Under the agreement, we will continue to be responsible for 24/7 on-site repair and maintenance for 32 MoorMaster vacuum mooring units, which we have delivered to the port. We signed the first agreement already in 2016, and the agreement reflects the trust built over decades of collaboration. During the quarter, we also presented an order worth approximately EUR 1.1 million for shore power equipment for an expansion of the cruise terminal in Southern California in the U.S. We have delivered shore power systems to this customer before and are, of course, excited to be part of the next phase of the cruise terminal development. Another key win is the EUR 7 million order to retrofit container vessels for shore power. The retrofit work will be carried out while the vessels remain in operation, so as not -- in order to not interrupt the sailing schedules. This is complex operations, but we have done this several times before. So we built up the experience, and this order really demonstrates our expertise and leading position in this field. We are also, of course, proud that we have closed an EUR 8 million shore power order from a leading global shipping company. Following this order, more than 350 vessels in the customer's fleet will be equipped with Cavotec shore power systems, and this order reflects the continued confidence that leading global shipping companies place in our shore Power solutions. And as I said previously, we also shifted group financing from Switzerland to Sweden by entering into this agreement with SEB. I will now hand over to you, Joakim, for more detailed comments on the financial performance in the quarter.

Thank you, David. As David mentioned, order intake increased in the quarter to -- with 11.3% to EUR 49.4 million, driven by a good demand for industries products and service offerings, especially motorized cable reels. Ports & Maritime did not show an increase in order intake in the quarter, but it's important to keep in mind that we do see a strong underlying demand driven by the need for electrification and decarbonization in the marine industry. Following the good order intake in both Q1 and Q2, we now have a healthy record high order backlog of close to EUR 156 million. I would also like to remind you that Cavotec is a project-driven business, which means that both order intake and revenue fluctuates between the quarters. The project-driven character of the business also means that we have long delivery times often over a year for larger projects such as installation of shore power systems. Moving over to revenue. We saw a strong revenue development in both Ports & Maritime and Industry with sales increasing 34% and 12%, respectively. The main development is mainly driven by the good demand for shore power systems and motorized cable reels. Moving over to EBIT. As David said in his introduction, we are not satisfied with the profitability development in the quarter. EBIT decreased to minus EUR 2.2 million with a decrease in EBIT margin of 3 percentage points to minus 5%. This development is a consequence of mix effects, partially caused by delayed deliveries of a few larger shore power projects in Southern Europe with low margins. Those orders were booked already back in 2024. Like David said, I would like to emphasize that we are confident with the margins in the order backlog for the second half of 2026. In the quarter, we also have taken EUR 1.1 million for the cost savings measures and the adjusted EBIT decreased to minus EUR 1.1 million with an adjusted EBIT margin of minus 2.5%. Moving over to the net profit. Net profit for the period decreased to minus EUR 3.2 million. And going forward, one should note that we have been successful in implementing our cost savings measure during the quarter, and we expect the run rate to be lowered by a total of EUR 3 million with full effect early 2027, but we expect to see some effects already later this year. Moving over to the segments, starting with the biggest segments in Ports & Maritime. Order intake decreased 4.5% to EUR 28 million, and the order backlog was essentially unchanged from the first quarter. We noticed a good revenue development, though, with an increase of 34% to EUR 28.5 million, which is reflecting the deliveries of the large number of shore power solutions. However, profitability has been negatively affected by mix effects, partially caused by delayed deliveries of a few larger shore power projects with low margins. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 0.6 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 1.9%. Remember that Ports & Maritime has a project-driven nature with long lead times that can impact the performance between the quarters. Moving over to the Industry segment. We are happy to see that in the Industry segment, the order intake increased by 42% in the quarter to EUR 21.4 million, mainly driven by a very good demand for motorized cable reels. Following the strong order intake, the order backlog increased with 11.7% to EUR 27.7 million. Revenue also increased 12.5% to EUR 16.2 million, driven by deliveries of motorized cable reels and good demand for services. Adjusted EBITDA showed a small decline to minus EUR 0.2 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of minus 0.9%, mainly due to product mix effects. Although Q2 profitability was below last year, we believe that Industry is really improving long term and that the increased customer focus and activity will deliver good results. We still have more work to be done in the Industry segment, but we are very pleased with the development, and we continue to see big market potential in this segment. Let us move over to cash flow. The operating cash flow and financial position were affected by the lower result in the quarter. At the same time, we have a bit higher inventories as we're building up for the second half of the year and upcoming deliveries. By that, the net debt increased a bit to minus EUR 10.9 million from EUR 8.8 million in Q1. The leverage ratio also increased a bit to 2.33 compared to 1.58 in the previous quarter. As David mentioned, we have now also taken the last steps of the move of seat from Switzerland to Sweden by refinancing Cavotec in Sweden with better condition. This financing was finalized in June. With that, I'll hand back over to David for some final remarks.

Thank you, Joakim. Let me then quickly summarize our presentation. We saw a strong order intake and revenue growth in the quarter, driven by healthy demand for our products and services. Our underlying markets are continuously strong, driven by the megatrends of electrification, automation and regulations. So I'm satisfied with the momentum that we have within Cavotec in our sales activities as well as the overall activity in the underlying markets for our products, resulting in a strong order intake and a very high and/or solid order book, all-time high, clearly, as Joakim mentioned. We did report a hit on our profitability in this quarter, but we are confident that the margins in the order backlog in the second half of the year are good, and we have successfully implemented our cost-saving measures during the quarter. Even though this quarter was a disappointment when it comes to the profitability, we are confident that we will deliver long-term value for our shareholders. By this, I have ended our second quarter presentation, and I'm now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Albin Barnevik from ABG Sundal Collier.

Good morning, David, and Joakim. This is Albin of ABG. First off, on the orders, we have 2 consecutive quarters now with a very solid order intake. Can you comment a bit about how you see demand developing, and perhaps a bit concretely also on the outlook, which has improved in the report.

Yes, for sure. I'm happy to do that. Throughout 2025, we saw a robust customer interest in our electric solutions. But despite this, Ports & Maritime customers, in particular, were hesitant to make decisions last year due to the uncertainty about the global situation and the economic developments. Of course, the tariffs coming up and down, things happening created some uncertainty, and therefore, they hold back on placing orders. Now in the first half year of 2026, we have seen a strong demand from the customers, again, a growth in order intake, primarily in shore power systems and motor cable reels for both maritime sector and also in the industrial sector. So it's a little bit, people are accepting the new as a new normal. So therefore, we see a strong positive outlook for the order intake.

All right. Of course, you have 2 large shore power orders now last week, one for delivery in '26 and the other one for '28, '29. Can you tell us a bit more about the customers here, where they're based, for instance, are these Italian orders as well? We know that one of them is retrofit order and the other one is a new build, for instance. But can you put some more color on where these are heading?

This is one of the biggest global shipping lines in the world. And yes, they're headquartered in Europe. At the same time, they are true global, clearly. And the retrofit business, as I mentioned before, is really where they have the existing vessels where they need to adapt into the shore power possibilities. And therefore, they can either do it in dry docks and then we equip our equipment in there to fit the narrow scheme they had when they planned to be in the dry docks or we do it also during sailing, meaning we're building our solutions and our PowerFit containers we built in our factory in Shanghai, and then we deliver to customers either in dry dock or deliver on the vessels and then our people are then on board on the vessels and installing it into the existing electrical system on the vessels. So it's quite complex things to be planned properly. And also then all vessels are not identical, of course. Therefore, we need to adapt our systems and the way we built it and retrofit it into the vessels. But we've done it before, and we are very confident in doing it. And that's, of course, why we're also giving -- getting the trust to deliver new equipment for the existing customer. It's the same customer also then have ordered the AMPReel, which we call them, which is installed on the vessels, but that is for new build, where they are building new vessels and then they equip the vessels already upfront with a short power solution. And the same thing there goes is produced in our facility in China in Shanghai because, of course, Asia is a big portion for where the vessels are built.

Is there a difference in pricing between retrofit and new build, for instance, and a different margin profile here? How should we think about that?

We could say that the more complex the products are and the retrofit is by default, more complex in order to do it, then, of course, our delivery content is bigger in that case. So therefore, of course, we have a bigger value to work on and therefore, of course, the margins are better. At the same time, the AMPReel deliveries to the new vessels is a little bit more of a serial production that we more or less produce in a rapid speed in our facility in Shanghai as well. So they are a little bit different in nature. It's simpler solutions on the newbuild side, and it's a little bit more complex with the retrofits, but we're also taking more the bigger scope there.

All right. That's clear. And regarding the delivery of the retrofit order because that should land in '26, if I understood it correctly, should we expect that to land in Q4 or Q3 or how well...

It will land from now more or less until and -- some of it will actually also then spill over to 2027. So it's '26 and '27 half year here in the first quarter in 2027.

All right. And if we look at Industry then, we saw good revenue growth here in the quarter, 12%. But it continued to decrease on EBIT and EBITDA sequentially. So what is holding back the profitability here in the segment? And when can we expect the margin to turn positive again?

I think there, we clearly see now. And again, this is since we divested the airport business many, many years ago, we now have a better focus on Industry. We see a growth and a strong potential in Industry. We need to be with customers. But as I said before, we're working with our customers in an early stage to design our equipment to fit into their equipment in the most efficient way. And there, we see strong momentum and a good growing opportunities across the entire world actually and across several different industries. And -- but again, the volume there and the growth of the order intake is what we see as is needed here in order to get the overall industry business bigger than what it is today.