Garo Aktiebolag (publ) (GARO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the GARO year-end report for 2024 conference call. [Operator Instructions] And that the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or for broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jonas Klarén, CEO. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone, to the presentation of GARO's report for Q4 2025. My name is Jonas Klarén, and I am the new CEO of GARO since the beginning of this year. I'm very excited to be here today and to have the opportunity to lead this company into its next chapter. I have now worked 25 days at GARO. And during these 5 weeks, I have tried to see all of our 406 employees, I still haven't managed to go to Finland and Germany yet, so I have around 12 people left on the list, but I'm working on it. With me today is Helena Claesson, our CFO, who will walk you through our financial performance in more detail a bit later in this presentation. Let's get started. Next slide, please. Before diving into the numbers, I want to take a moment to reflect on where we stand today and the progress we have made and what we are doing to ensure a stronger and more profitable future for GARO and why companies like GARO play such a crucial role in the global energy transition. European power demand is expected to rise by around 40% by 2050. This means that not only installing plus 40% but almost all of the existing electrical infrastructure we rely on today will need to be upgraded. With my 25 years of experience in this segment and now 25 days at GARO, I can say with absolute confidence that companies like ours sit at the heart of the energy transition. Our products aren't just relevant, they are going to be essential for decades to come. And that's the main reason why I choose to join GARO. I believe in this company's mission, its products and its potential to make a real impact in this time and space we are living in. Next slide, please. Most of you have probably seen GARO products before. But this slide serves as a reminder that we are everywhere. We offer between 3,000 to 4,000 products in our range. And after today, I'm pretty sure that some of you will start spotting them even more. To be quick, let me just walk you through this slide. Starting from the left, you will see our solutions for the temporary power and temporary EV charging at work sites. A growing segment as all construction sites are moving towards becoming fully electric. As we move along, we have our cable cabinets in the streets that transfer the electricity from the streets into apartments and commercial buildings as well as public charging stations. The same goes for the residential areas where we support homes and also even some more niches like camping grounds and marinas. Next slide, please. In real life, some of the products looks like this. These are snapshots from our Electrification business area. Next slide, please. And here, we have some key products from our E-mobility business area in real life. Next slide, please. Now over to the operational highlights, starting with GARO Electrification. I'm happy to say that Ireland continues its strong growth. It's one of our best performing markets, and this positive trend has been stable over time. Across the public sector and in commercial and industrial properties, we are still seeing a steady demand, which has been important for our stability. However, in the Nordic region, residential construction faced a significant decline throughout 2024. And this has affected our housing-related products. The good news is that it seems that you reach the bottom of the downturn, and sales are now stabilizing. We expect a gradual market improvement moving forward, and you will see that our Electrification business area is performing good, which puts us in a stronger position for 2025. Now let's look at how our E-mobility sector is performing. E-mobility is still facing the pressure from the macroeconomic climate. Investments, decisions and purchasing patterns are being influenced by market uncertainty. But despite that, we are focused on finding the right opportunities to keep driving growth. Public charging remains the main driver for sales in this business area. This continues to be a strong and growing market. We also achieved an important milestone with the Eichrecht certification for both GARO Entity and our Polish production site. This not only boosts our credibility but also open doors to more opportunities in the German regulated market. Even with these challenges, GARO remains agile. We are constantly adapting strategies to align with shifting demands. And now with Europe's strong focus on sustainability and the energy transition, we expect steady growth in public charging moving forward. Now let's talk about how we're building the future. To ensure a long-term profitability, that's a hard word, we developed an action program. The focus is clear, boost efficiency, control costs and strengthen profitability. One of our strengths is how GARO Electrification and GARO E-mobility works together. These synergies helps us optimize costs and provides a solid foundation for growth. We also built in scalability across our business and product lines. This means that GARO is more flexible and able to quickly adapt to market demands, giving us a strong competitive edge. Finally, we are not just looking at the short term. Our investments in innovation and strong customer focus will drive sustainable growth and help us keep reinforcing GARO's position in the market. And now over to you, Helena, with the figures. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Jonas. And I will start by looking at the financial summary for the fourth quarter. Net sales amounted to SEK 283 million, a decrease of 9% compared with the same quarter last year. We are pleased to notice an increase of sales within GARO Electrification by 2%, while GARO E-mobility posted a decrease in the quarter of 33% or SEK 32 million. For the full year of 2024, net sales amounted to SEK 1.2 billion, almost to be compared with almost SEK 1.4 billion in the year of 2023, a decrease of 16% and the majority of the lower sales was seen within the business area, GARO E-mobility. Overall, the gross margin has been at similar levels as previous quarters, where strong margins within GARO Electrification has been offset by lower gross margins within GARO E-mobility. This is a result of changed product mix. The adjusted operating profit for the quarter amounted to SEK 3 million compared with a negative SEK 8 million for the same quarter last year. Adjusted operating profit for the full year amounted to negative SEK 7 million compared with SEK 43 million last year, where costs for write-downs of inventory in this year, mainly within the business area GARO E-mobility has burdened the result of SEK 48 million. Last year, it was improved by SEK 8 million. To summarize the quarter, we can see an improved cash flow and growth within GARO Electrification that is offset by continued challenges within GARO E-mobility. Next slide, please. And now we look into the 2 business areas separately, and we'll start with GARO Electrification. Net sales amounted to SEK 222 million for the quarter, giving us, as I said, a growth of 2% compared with SEK 217 million last year. The Electrification business is and remains our stable base, this is where GARO has its history and the stability in this business area gives us the possibility to take on challenges and invest in new markets for GARO E-mobility. As Jonas mentioned, our operation in Ireland shows a positive trend. By broadening our product range, we noticed both growth as well as improved profitability. The U.K. office continues to be a market that requires large volumes to reach the desired profitability. The price pressure is clear, but during the quarter, we have implemented important operational improvements to meet these challenges. Adjusted operating profit amounted to SEK 26 million compared with SEK 15 million in the year earlier quarter, giving us an adjusted operating margin of 11.8%. Adjusted operating profit for the full year amounted to SEK 84 million, where GARO has made a write-down of SEK 9 million for slow-moving inventory. This is to be compared with capital gains from sold properties in 2023, which boosted the result by SEK 18 million. Next slide, please. And now we move on and look into GARO E-mobility business area. Net sales amounted to SEK 62 million for the quarter, giving us a negative growth of 34%. E-mobility continues to be a challenging but still important market for GARO's future. The competition is getting tougher, but we keep our focus in mind in doing business based on quality, customer focus and innovation. The agreement with Onepark and installations at Ørland Airport in Norway are clear examples on how our products and our team create long-term values. The adjusted operating profit for the quarter amounted to negative SEK 23 million. Previously communicated action program has been completed in the quarter, and this will have full effect as start of this year, first quarter. The adjusted operating profit for the full year amounted to negative SEK 92 million, where GARO has made write-downs of almost SEK 45 million for slow moving inventory in 2024. This seems to be compared with the same kind of write-downs last year of approximately SEK 10 million. And to summarize the 2 business areas, one could say that GARO Electrification has had yet another stable quarter while GARO E-mobility continues to face challenging marketing conditions. Next slide, please. And now a little bit on cash flow and balance sheet. Cash flow from operating activities before change in working capital amounted to SEK 6 million. Cash flow from operating activities after changes in working capital amounted to SEK 37 million. Tied-up capital in inventory increased with SEK 2 million net. Furthermore, we have a deposit within the supplier for materials ordered but not yet called off. At the end of the period, the deposit amounted to SEK 45 million, where no additional deposits has been made in the quarter. Our net debt position amounted to SEK 285 million compared with SEK 222 million last year quarter. This is, however, SEK 30 million lower than our net debt position for Q3 of this year. We had an equity asset ratio of 50% and available liquidity, including overdraft facilities of SEK 100 million. And now back to you, Jonas. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Helena. So what's ahead? The recovery of the E-mobility market is slower than we have hoped, but we're still confident about the long-term opportunities. The continued expansion of charging infrastructure driven by sustainable goals will eventually boost demand. In the Nordic region, residential construction remained low throughout 2024, but looking into 2025, we expect a gradual recovery, which should benefit our housing-related products. On the brighter side, demand in the public sector, commercial and industrial markets remain strong, driven by ongoing renovation needs and the increasing focus on energy efficiency. Overall, while there are still some short-term challenges, we expect gradual market improvements across both Electrification and E-mobility and the outlook for 2025 is definitely more positive. So over to Q&A. Next slide, please.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Lund Anton from Kepler Cheuvreux.

So you mentioned deliveries to data centers specifically in the quarter. Can you please elaborate a bit on how this impacted your Q4 figures?

Can you repeat the question?

Yes, sure. So you mentioned that you had deliveries related to data centers in the quarter. Can you provide any color of the magnitude, the size, profitability and so on?

It's all in the report. If you are going to wait for it a bit with a written report that we will publish later on. It's been published. But it's mainly in Ireland, I think, where we're working with data centers. Ireland is a strong sector for data centers.

I think you could say that it has boosted and it's been part of the boosted sales in Ireland throughout 2024. There is no sort of say framework agreements. I couldn't give you sort of say a value of the contract or anything. But -- it's a business that is continuously growing for us, and it helps us, so to say, improving into other markets, as Jonas mentioned earlier and other sort of say, product groups.

All right. Very good. And then your headcount is now 15% lower year-on-year on the back of the cost out throughout the year. I'm just wondering, would you say you work at full capacity now in terms of number of employees. Or how much do you think you can grow from here without increasing the headcount?

Well, as Jonas said, we have worked on our, so to say, production flows. We have made those more efficient. And I couldn't give you an exact number, but there is good potential for growth with what we have today.

For sure. And our facilities are also -- we have good potential to grow. Just to give you an example, if the German market now continues to follow the path of -- as expected, 700,000 new EV vehicles for 2025, that's quite a bold statement from Germany. But then we can easily build up our production in Poland quite fast. Since we're now Eichrecht approved, it's also in the factory, it's a good position market, very close to the German border as well in Poland.

Very good. And then you also mentioned you have new debt covenants with your bank, and it is related to cash flow. I'm guessing this is specifically tied to your working capital levels. How should we think of the working capital now? Let's say, if growth comes back, are you satisfied with the level where you are today? Or is there still room for improvement?

No, there is a large room still for improvement. And we have really sort of say, tightened or limited purchases. As you know, we still have high inventory values. So there is still a lot of room for -- to free up capital from inventory. And if we look back, net working capital, we -- in '20 -- well before the COVID situation, I would say that we had perhaps 20%, 25% net working capital in relation to turnover. So that's our main target to come back to that.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jonas Klarén, CEO, for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

I just want to say thank you for listening from me and Helena, and I think that's all for us.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.