Incap Oyj (ICP1V) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Incap's webcast covering the fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. My name is Pauliina Tennila, and I will be hosting this webcast. Joining us are Incap's President and CEO, Otto Pukk; and CFO, Antti Pynnonen. Otto and Antti will walk you through the results, after which we will go through your questions. [Operator Instructions] And a recording of this webcast will be available on Incap's website later today. With that, I'll hand it over now to Otto Pukk.

Thank you very much. And from my side as well, welcome, and thank you for everybody listening in. It's always nice to have so much interest of what we're doing in Incap. So I will walk you through the -- a little bit of the result and with Antti give the numbers, and then we will take Q&A as normal we will do. Yes. So very good. If we look at the year, the year ended as we expected. We did a correction in -- during the year and after that, it followed that course. And in the big picture, we are happy with the outcome came in as we expected. We continue to invest and develop the operations in Incap and that we take great pride in to keep doing. Of course, a big part of the -- part or a big event for us in the end of the year was the acquisition of Lacon that you saw now closed here in the beginning of the year. And that, of course, we are very excited about moving forward. I will talk a little bit more about that in a while. Then, of course, 2025 was also our 40-year -- jubilee year. So also that rendered in some extra activities and a little bit festivities in the different units, which is, of course, always positive. Overall, I think we had a great EBIT percentage, again, hitting almost 12%. And as I said, we ended as we expected. The result, like we talked about last quarter release, of course, is impacted by some foreign exchange rates and so as well. This Antti can open up more [ to ] during the Q&A if there are still questions about it. I think you saw a nice recovery during the quarter 4 on that. So the impact was less. But yes, Antti is happy to answer questions regarding that. As I said, Lacon is -- was a big step for us, and we're very excited about that. This strengthens Incap's position in several sectors, among those defense sector that, of course, has been talked about a lot here during the past years with the geopolitical situation that we have, but also gave us more capabilities in form of design capabilities as Lacon is -- has ODM capabilities as well. And also giving us a better reach into the DACH area and to the big industrial centers of Europe and this we are very excited about. Also, I must say that I'm very happy with the interactions that we have had with Lacon team. It seems to be that we are sharing a lot of the culture and the way we work, and it has been a great start with the integration work and all the work streams that we are working on currently. So this -- we look forward to very much during the year to continue to integrate them and develop the business among ourselves because, of course, the service offering for Lacon's customers has increased by being part of the bigger Incap family and also the service offering and the value proposition for Incap's customers is increasing, thanks to the capabilities that Lacon has. So a warm welcome to all of them. And yes, they will be Incap Germany and Incap Romania. So soon, we won't talk about Lacon in that sense, but I'll do this -- still this one. So yes, that is a big thing. I mentioned investments, and we have, during the year, kept on investing in our facilities. And this is something Incap takes great pride in that if we want to produce the latest technology for our customers, then we also should have up-to-date technology in the factory. Sometimes you walk around in EMS factories and you see equipment that is 20-, 30-year old. And yes, then you have been too late in changing it. But in Incap, we are working very actively with programs to update our platforms and update the things we do. And this also gives result when we service our customers. Sustainability, the demand for sustainability reporting have gone down from the European Union side. And so still, we have decided to continue our reporting in Incap and do it perhaps to a little bit more reasonable extent, but still sustainability and the thinking of what our footprint is in the world when it comes to environment and social and also government issues are very important for us. We are a value-driven business, and this is very much in the core of what we are doing. And we have continued to develop. We have continued to update our reporting. We have very interesting investments that have been driven now as well with the solar rooftop panels in many of the factory. And as you perhaps remember, I'm very excited over the investment we are doing in our U.S. factory, where we will be basically self-sufficient when it comes to electricity through our own solar park in that sense. And so this is something I think is interesting and very close to our way to drive businesses to take responsibility also in the bigger picture of what we are doing here on Planet Earth. Quality and our team is, of course, the cornerstone of our business. We have continued to develop different management structures and management systems in the company that are focusing on quality. U.S. here -- finalized here work environment and environment certificates during the year, and we are continuing to work that in all units. Also, I must say that when it comes to our people, then we can never praise them enough. We have excellent people all over the world servicing our customers and creating value. And it's always a pleasure to move around in the different units and meet these people that are actually the ones doing the electronics, not like us in the headquarters just reading about it in that sense in the numbers. But that said, I'll give the word to Mr. Antti Pynnonen, take it away.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Otto, once again. If we take the first slide with focusing on the Q4 figures. So what we reported there was EUR 55.3 million revenue, EUR 6.9 million EBIT, and then that contributes 12.5% in EBIT-wise. And then what we wanted to highlight as well was what Otto briefly touched earlier was the impact of the exchange rates, and then we included the text that comparable -- with the comparable rates, the revenue was EUR 58.8 million. So then it was EUR 3.5 million impact there in the reporting. And then yes, that's, in that sense, worth to mention because with these comparable rates, basically, we were matching pretty nicely with the Q4 2024 figures. What we can really be proud of is, of course, the profitability. And then we had this Q4 impacted by acquisition-related costs, almost EUR 1 million. And then if we adjust those back, so then we reported adjusted EBIT of EUR 8 million, which is excellent of 14.4%. So solid delighted end for the year. We can move on -- yes. And here, we can see the graph. As we can see then the Q4 pretty much nicely bounced back from Q3, matching the levels of the second quarter of the year. And then indeed, it was a good solid growth in the profitability as well in the last set of the quarter. The table here summarizes some of the key metrics we have. Interesting, of course, always to measure the inventory values. There, we had some good development, but we got preaching a lot on the efficiency of inventory management, and there has been a lot of actions in the all units to optimize that level. And then we can see that it went down to EUR 52 million in the last quarter. Our financial position is indeed extremely strong. This is, of course, in the end of Q4 status of minus EUR 52.9 million interest-bearing net debt. So that is very good for Incap, and we remain very flexible in terms of the financials. And the personnel headcount number summarized on the right side. There, we have some swings here and there, some units a little bit went down in the headcount, like we mentioned, Slovakia number went down from year-on-year level and so on, but 2,614 people overall.

Yes. And perhaps back to the outlook, we have -- as reported, we expect to be clearly higher than in 2025, both when it comes to the revenue and the comparable EBITA. And of course, this takes into account both the Lacon acquisition and also the growth we are expecting from our previous or yes, the old Incap units. And then I think we are ready for the Q&A session. So Pauliina, take it away with the questions.

Thank you, Otto and Antti. So I think one of the first questions is that since you have such a good situation on your balance sheet, why are you taking a loan to pay for the Lacon acquisition?

Yes. No, that's a good question. And now, of course, we are focusing very much on the integration of Lacon. But still, our growth in that sense, story, we haven't expected to end. And we -- once we have successfully integrated Lacon, we expect to continue with on the M&A track as well. And for that, we need firepower and that is shortly what that is all about. So you should see this perhaps in the more longer term and in a bigger picture. Antti, do you want to add something?

Yes. I think it's, from my perspective, really managing risks and then also managing potential opportunities as those arise. And then what I'm referring here is, for example, we have to be ready immediately if some of our big clients start ordering and their business keeps developing to the positive direction and our production volumes rapidly goes up. So we must be able to finance very, very fast net working capital increases. We saw that 2022 with India increasing volumes in EUR 100 million and think about how much cash was needed. Immediately, there's no time to start discussions. Well, this is preferable this way that we have the -- we remain flexible in the financials and on top of things. And then what Otto mentioned, of course, when there's major size opportunities in inorganic way, acquisitions and so forth. So then again, time is money and then the companies who are able to react fast and have solid financials in place to sell to -- the seller party and counterparty. So then you get the credibility as a buyer and things like that. Plus then, of course, there's going to be loan amortizations coming up in the plans and so forth. But yes, I think we just prefer to have some buffers rather than keep too lean.

Maybe the next question about the outlook. And there's a question about if there's any way you could give some color on the organic growth part of the guidance? And what is the foreign exchange rate impact on this clearly higher guidance?

Yes, we haven't reported it separately in that sense. So of course, the previous Lacon numbers on their performance in the past years, we shared with the acquisitions. I guess you can do some [ backtracking ]. But yes, we haven't shared that detail in it. I don't know, Antti, do you want to comment on the exchange rate?

Yes. Well, we don't speculate with the exchange rate. So that is reflected the latest development there and then basically with the current exchange rates, that's the steering we gave.

Congratulations on great Q4, great margins. And one question is that how is your current order book in the coming 3 to 6 months?

Yes. Thank you very much in that sense. So first of all, no, we are not reporting our order book separately. But of course, as we are expecting growth and we are expecting -- yes, both through, of course, the Lacon add-on, but also generally then, of course, that reflects also in our order book as our forecast is based on our actual order book and also then firm forecasts from our customers. So if that perhaps answers the questions indirectly.

How about your defense exposure? You have now said that it will be growing with the acquisition of Lacon. So what do you expect it to be in the future? How much of your net sales will come from the defense sector?

Yes. Still, our exposure is not -- even with the add-on of Lacon, it's not now very big in that sense. So we're not dominated by defense. And we think it's very important to keep the company balanced. I know there is a big race currently on defense, but it's also important to think about times after. That said, we expect our defense share to increase here during the year and during the next year as well, as many of our major defense customers are expecting to grow with different programs. So that is -- Antti, do you want to comment on the percentage? It's not that big currently, but expected to grow.

You are right. So if we include some expected defense customer growth for this year and then some Incap unit level development programs we have there, so combining altogether, we are still -- we are under 10% still on a group level quite nicely.

There's a question related to this a little bit to elaborate on the expected revenues for 2026. So I'm not sure if this means a little bit sector by sector, maybe if there's anything to comment on the different markets and their impact on your demand?

Yes, we are not reporting sector by sector per se. But as I have said before, defense and what is around AI data centers, that is currently growing, and we see with our customers as well, well growth around that. Then there is some growth in other sectors as well that -- but that is more on also a company level. I would say that in general, I'm quite positive on our expectations when it comes to this year. And I -- as we said, we expect growth and that also inorganically or -- organically and inorganically. So overall, I think we will have positive development in many sectors.

How about -- you mentioned that there are some personnel reductions in Slovakia. What was the reason behind those reductions?

Yes. There -- we discussed that also in the beginning of the year that there was some postponements of some customer projects and we are always balancing and trying to fit our capacity according to what is the demand for the moment. So this is a part of being an EMS company is to increase capacity and reduce capacity when needed. And that was what happened in Slovakia as well that we took down the capacity to match the demand. But it goes up and down. I wouldn't say that, that is anything in particular. We do that in all units, and it goes both ways. We increase and decrease.

Moving on then to India. Could you give some kind of an overview of the growth in India?

Yes, India is developing very nicely. And we mentioned here in the [indiscernible] videos. And so when they were visiting us as well, a little bit -- gave a little bit flavor on the projects that we have ongoing there. And I think it's a positive development. We have new big customer accounts in India that we are developing and ramping up and balancing out. Our largest customers that is -- has its manufacturing in India as well. And so we have had a positive development. I wouldn't say that our third factory is full yet, but walking around, there is a lot of activities.

So in case there's no further questions online, then I think we can start to wrap up. Would you like to wrap up the year 2025 still once more, Otto?

Yes, sure. I can do that. So the year ended as we expected after the adjustment we did. I'm very happy for the performance of our team. We have great people all over the world, and that is really burning for electronics. And it's, in that sense, not an understatement that we have a bunch of electronic rock stars in Incap. I look forward for this year. And I think with the addition of Lacon and the great development that we are foreseeing in the different units, it's an exciting year for Incap and to continue to develop the business and that with new team members and all what that brings. And I'm very thankful for the interest from you guys, the investors that we always have a big audience when it comes to our webinars. And I encourage you all, if you have questions and so, reach out to me and Antti. We always try to find time to meet with investors and [ talk ] in smaller groups as well. So I encourage you to do that. But until next time, and thank you very much, guys.