Inwido AB (publ) (INWI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Inwido Q4 2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to speakers CEO, Fredrik Meuller; and CFO, Peter Welin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to this webcast and telephone conference covering Inwido's fourth quarter and full year performance of 2024. My name is Fredrik Meuller, President and CEO of Inwido and I'm joined on this call by Peter Welin, our group CFO and Deputy CEO. I'm in Malmo today, and Peter is in Stockholm, but I'm sure we will work out the logistics just fine. We will start off with a run-through of the highlights from the quarter and year, respectively, followed by a more in-depth review of group and business area financials before rounding off with summary conclusions and outlook and Q&A. As usual, this presentation material is already available on Inwido's website. While you may already be familiar with Inwido, it's always worth underlining the unique features of our group creating healthy shareholder value since more than 2 decades, of which, one in the public domain. We are Europe's leading window group consisting of 35 business units across 12 countries and enjoying a #1 position in Nordics and #2 in the U.K. Our strong brands are synonymous with genuine craftsmanship and high quality. Our windows and doors improve quality of life by, for example, being energy-efficient, safe and aesthetically appealing. Importantly, we are making solid progress on our exciting growth journey towards becoming a SEK 20 billion company by year 2030, displaying a strong financial performance and strengthening our strategic position for what's to come, namely the normalization of demand, the green transition across Europe and the synergistic acquisitions that we are working on. Inwido finished the year in style. After 7 long quarters, we are now back on the growth track, reporting solid sales growth in both total and organic terms and across all of our 4 business areas. On the same theme, our order intake kept the positive momentum from last spring, growing for the third consecutive quarter and in a major way, organically, plus 19%, meaning we ended up with a strong backlog that since it grew by 29%, gives us confidence for the coming months and quarters. Profitability wise, I can proudly conclude that we managed to maintain a healthy level overall of 12.2% operating EBITA margin despite market conditions, varying quite a bit between our 35 entities and not all stars being aligned at the same time. Naturally, some of the BUs, particularly in Finland, where we did really well in Q4 2023, now like the volume required to fully absorb their fixed cost base and are fighting daily with the price pressure that comes with a smaller pool of business. Through our effective decentralized governance model, we constantly work on improving each entity's performance, we don't see signs of improvement despite our efforts, we proactively take measures to restructure it as was the case this past quarter where we announced the closure of one smaller BU in England? Yes, it hampers our EPS in that particular quarter, but it enables management to focus on other things and it improves the consolidated Inwido profit margin in the longer term. Now let's go to [indiscernible] Scotland and our Sidey Group, which I sometimes refer to as the gift that keeps on giving. As mentioned at our Capital Markets Day in December, Sidey and Walker Profiles have won there and Inwido largest order to date were GBP 22.5 million over the coming 2 years and with a possible extension that would double it over another 2 years. Apart from this being yet another stamp of approval for the quality of this business, it is an excellent example of what we expect to happen across the EU over the next few years as governments in member states abide by the EPBD directive and renovate old houses, making them more energy efficient with a particular focus on replacing windows and doors. All of our business areas performed well also this past quarter, particularly considering the different operating context. Scandinavia, first of all, delivered strong profit margins yet again seeing more volume flow through a more cost-effective structure. Denmark is stable on a high level. And in Sweden, the consumer market showed signs of recovery. Norway, however, remains soft and so does new build across all 3 countries. Eastern Europe remains severely hampered by the historic low newbuild levels, whereas renovation, at last, seems to have bottomed out, illustrated by the healthy order intake growth of 16%. Business area e-commerce continues to grow profitably as per its plan, and operating EBITA almost doubled, which is really impressive. Western Europe also did well across most parameters and particularly in Ireland, where market conditions are more favorable than in England. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, sustainability has become a natural part of our DNA, and last quarter was no exception. We reached yet another key milestone by introducing Scope 3 to our SBTI reporting and throughout all my site visits since I joined, I've witnessed our focused work within this important field and it's definitely paying off in reduced emissions, less waste, lower absence and in fewer accidents. And while many out there still perceive sustainability as a cost driving must do, we, at Inwido are increasingly turning it into also a commercial opportunity, perfectly exemplified by our Finland-based Pihla Group that in Q4, launched a groundbreaking low CO2 window. Through exclusive collaboration with our main suppliers within glass and aluminum, we completely revolutionized the industry and reduced the emission standard by more than 40%, 4-0. Construction companies already embrace it since it drastically helps them meet regulatory and shareholder requirements. On this slide, we summarize our key financials for Q4 2024 relative to Q4 the previous year and it's a strong set of numbers, I think. Order intake grew by 20% and by 19% organically and our order backlog reached a healthy SEK 2.5 billion, up by 29%. Net sales in turn increased by 7% quarter-on-quarter and was plus 5% organically. Operating EBITA edged up a bit from last year to SEK 296 million, which equates to a margin of 12.2% slightly down from 12.7% in 2023, where the lion's share of the delta is related to BA, Eastern Europe's much tougher market conditions. Net debt in relation to operating EBITDA went up slightly from 1.0x last year to 1.1x now or 0.7x, if not applying IFRS 16 accounting, accordingly, well within our set targets and leaving a healthy headroom for further growth, including acquisitions. Okay. Let's now take a deeper look into the rearview mirror of 2024 and a sample of our achievements across organic and acquired growth as well as sustainability, is listed here. We have a clear strategic road map. So focus is really on execution, the how. I was, therefore, really pleased by the way, we, as a team, took further steps to strengthen our market leadership and our operating platform so that we can grow faster over the coming years. In parallel, we managed the soft market conditions prevailing in several markets in an impressive fashion, yet another proof that we have the best people in the business and that our governance model works really, really well. When our peers stepped on the brakes, we went forward instead, leveraging our financial muscle and making long-term investments in people and in equipment. Several great new products offered ammunition to our sales force and boosted our confidence. On dividends, a key component, of course, of our total shareholder value creation, Inwido's Board of Directors is proposing SEK 5.50 per share, which is, if you adjust for restructuring costs, totally in line with our policy. Also bearing in mind that we have strong cash flow generation and that we have plenty of acquisition opportunities out there to pursue. As I'm sure you recall, 2024 was a bumpy ride, but we fared really well overall, and that positive momentum and experience is highly useful as we have now entered the new year. Q1 last year was still severely hampered by low market demand. But in Q2, we started growing our order intake again. And that pattern continued throughout also second half of 2024. And do note that our profitability has remained rather high in all 4 quarters, which is quite impressive, I think, given the circumstances. Our full year figures comprised an organic net sales decline of 6% and our operating EBITA margin of 10.8%, down from 11.4% in 2023. Return on operating capital equaled 12.7% compared to 15.4% in 2023. And the negative delta in earnings per share from SEK 11.72 last year to SEK 9.29 now was largely related to items affecting comparability and to positive currency effects in last year's financial net. Peter, over to you for an in-depth review of the consolidated Q4 and full year financials. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Fredrik. We start with this page. This page is showing the income statement. To the left, you can see the Q4 in the middle as well as the right, you can see the full year resource. Starting with the quarter. Sales is down by 7% compared to last year. Adjusted for acquisitions and the currency, the sales is -- sorry, up by 7% and adjusted for acquisitions and FX, the organic growth is plus 5% compared to last year. The margin is lower compared to last year. Gross margin as well as operating EBITDA and operating EBITA margin is below last year due to Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is still challenging, a tough market and with lower margins. All other segments has higher gross margins as well as operating EBITA margin in the quarter compared to last year. So the operating EBITA margin declined from 12.7% to 12.2%. In the quarter, we had restructuring cost of SEK 23 million due to the closedown of the sales organization of one business unit in U.K. and also due to restructurings within e-commerce, close down of logistic centers and 2 showrooms. We have also a positive tax impact in the quarter when comparing to last year. It's a tax adjustments related to 2023 to Sidey before we acquired companies, and that gave a positive impact of SEK 22 million in the quarter when comparing to last year. So then profit after tax is up 1% and the earnings per share is down by 1% compared to last year due to our minority interest. Looking at the full year, sales is down by 1%. Organically, it's down by 6% compared to last year, meaning Inwido has lost, during the last 2 years, 2023 as well as 2024, combined organic sales of SEK 2 billion. At the same time, as for the full year of 2024, the margin is slightly down, gross margin from 25.8% to 25.4%, also mostly related to development within Eastern Europe and operating EBIT margin is down from 11.4% to 10.8%. Further down the income statement, we can see that profit after tax is down by 80% from SEK 703 million to SEK 576 million, and earnings per share is down by 21% compared to last year. This page is showing a waterfall. And to the left, you can see the development in Q4 for sales and to right, we can see developments in operating EBIT. Sales is up on all segments. All segments had higher sales this year compared to last year in Q4. However, the result is down in Eastern Europe, where Scandinavia, e-commerce and Western Europe has higher results in SEK and also higher margins when compared to last year. As I said before and also, as Fredrik said, Eastern Europe, especially Finland is still facing challenging markets. The margins of Eastern Europe is below last year. However, the margin of last year was historically quite high. So when comparing the margins in Q4 for Eastern Europe to the level of 2019 until 2021, it's slightly below those levels. Then we had extra really high margins in 2023 as well as in 2022. Looking at the margins and a long-term perspective, the margins for Q4, the margin in Q4 this year is below last year, 12.2% compared to 12.7%. However, it is above the level of 2021 as well as 2022. And looking at the average during the last 6 years, the margin is largely above the average of the last 6 years. Looking at the cash flows. The cash flow is more or less the same level as last year, slightly positive when looking at cash flow before financial activities and then excluding financial assets and also acquisitions, then it's up 1% compared to last year. The cash flows from operating activities is down by 7%, and then that has been compensated but more positive when it comes to changes in working capital. Then Inwido is investing more this year compared to last year or last years. On the graph to the right, you can see the development for the full year 2019 until 2024. Prior to the pandemic, Inwido had a CapEx level of about 3%, 3.5% of sales. Then during pandemic and due to different reasons, the capital went down and Inwido must compensate that for those lower levels during the pandemic. So it has been increased, was 3.4% of sales 2023 and 2024 is now 4.1%. And you can expect a little bit higher CapEx level around 4% in the next coming years to compensate the lower levels during the pandemic. With the stable results slightly above last year and with the cash flows on the same level as last year, the net debt has decreased in the quarter. The net debt, including IFRS 16 was SEK 1.305 billion in December this year. Excluding IFRS 16, it was SEK 784 million, meaning we have an IFRS 16 debt of SEK 521 million. Looking at net debt in relation to operating EBITDA, it was 1.0, including IFRS 16 compared to 0.9 last year. And excluding IFRS 16 is 0.7 compared to 0.6 last year. Inwido has a target not to go above 2.5, meaning Inwido has financial headroom and for future growth, both when it comes to investing in our facilities or in our production units and also when it comes to acquisitions. Another financial target of Inwido is return on operating capital. Return on operating capital is defined as EBITA rolling 12 months in relation to operating capital and operating capital is the average last 4 quarters. In 2022, it was on the highest level, on 18.3% and since then, Inwido has facing tougher market conditions. During the last 2 years, as said before, Inwido has lost SEK 2 billion of sales -- organic sales decline. In 2022, the operating EBITA margin was 11.4%. And now 2024, the operating EBITA margin has declined to 10.8% defined of 0.6% units. When it comes to EBIT, of course, it has declined due to the lower sales. So we're calculating the return on operating capital, we have a lower profit level. It leveled out in Q2 and Q3 on 13% -- 13.1%. Now in Q4, we had this restructuring cost that has a negative impact when calculating return on operating capital. So adjusted for restructuring costs, it would have been around this 13%. We have somewhat higher operating capital in Q4 compared to Q3, the average, and that is due to tax payments, but also due to a weaker Swedish krona and that's had a negative impact when calculating the operating capital. Inwido has also changed the market segment definition. In the past, we talked about consumer and industry. That has now been changed to consumer and projects. We have reclassified some of the customers, mostly associated to house manufacturers and housing units. They were in the past, classified as consumer sales. Now they are classified as product sales. The reason behind this is to, a little bit better explain, the order intake as well as the order backlog. Because after the acquisition of Sidey, we have more variance in the order intake between the different quarters because Sidey, when they take orders, they can take really big orders as we show -- we could see in December 2024. So by changing the definitions we can then, a little bit better, see the development, especially when it comes to order backlog and also the order intake between the different customer segments. So Inwido has now, when the new -- with the new calculations, about 60% or 61% consumer sales and 36%, when it comes to product sales. And thereby, we have also splitted up the order backlog as well as the order intake for these 2 new segments, consumer and projects. On this page to the left, you can see the order backlog. The order backlog was end of December, SEK 2.490 billion, and last year, it was SEK 1.937 billion. The order backlog then consists of consumer of about 23% of the total backlog is consumer and that has increased by 13% and the project orders has -- is about 76% of order backlog and has increased by 35%. The consumer orders or the backlog -- consumer order backlog is quite short. That means it's going to be delivered next coming quarter. 6 to 8 weeks delivery times is the normal delivery times on consumer orders. The product orders on another way is -- can be quite long. It can be 1 year, and can also, in some cases, be up to 2 years, but 1 year to 2 years and can also, of course, be a bit shorter, 6 months as well. But in normal circumstances, the product orders are quite much longer delivery times compared to consumer orders. Looking at the order intake. The order intake was plus 20% adjusted for -- so plus 20% adjusted for FX. Excluding acquisitions and FX, it was plus 19% compared to last year. Consumers was minus 2% and the projects was plus 60%. And then, of course, the large order of Sidey has a positive impact, looking at the order intake for project. The Western Europe had a positive order intake growth of 86% compared to last year, but we had also positive growth in Eastern Europe with plus 10% and e-commerce, which only sell into consumer markets, was plus 12% compared to last year. Scandinavia was more or less on the same level as last year. I'll now hand it over back to Fredrik.

Thank you very much, Peter. Looking at our 4 business areas then, and starting with Scandinavia, we saw a healthy improvement in both top and bottom line performance. This was driven by the consumer market, but remains solid in Denmark, and that is gradually improving in Sweden, whereas Norway remains soft still. Costs are generally under control, meaning the higher sales volume had a nice drop through to the operating EBITA margin, which increased from 15.0% to 17.1% in the quarter. Moving eastwards, the rapid worsening of market conditions has resulted in a sharp decline of demand and a related increase in competition and price pressure for this BA. Our entities have generally adapted very well to the situation and done better than their peers, but still came out at a much lower profit level than the same period last year. Operating EBITA margin went from 14.5% and to 6.3%. However, there is a silver lining to this story in the form of BA sales, order intake and order backlog increasing, which bodes well for what's to come. Turning our focus to the next BA, e-commerce. We can probably conclude that the team is continuing its growth in online sales and that the profitability follows suit. Excellent figures all around with the icing on the cake being operating EBITA almost doubling from SEK 12 million to SEK 23 million, resulting in a margin of 8.6%. The new year has already seen positive news in the form of Poland having -- being added as a new market through the brand, Spar[indiscernible] and the second brand being added in Germany. We had back west and like the upward sloping curves of this BA meaning they also made excellent progress on their profitable growth journey despite market conditions in England being far from where we expect them to be. Still, we have a broad portfolio of several well-established entities and collectively, they grew top line, which also meant operating EBITA margin ended up higher than last year at 11.6%. Ireland looks solid. And in Scotland, we, of course, enjoy the already mentioned record orders to Sidey Group. The BA's order intake growing by a staggering 86%, I think, is quite okay. To wrap up then, I want to thank all my coworkers for a job well done throughout 2024 in general and during Q4 in particular. We have weathered the storm very well and are now better positioned than ever for what's around the corner. After a desert walk of 7 quarters, we are now back on the organic net sales growth track. And furthermore, for the third consecutive quarter, we also grew order intake and backlog. Pricing, cost efficiency and restructuring measures are beginning to bear fruit, although there's more to come in this field as well as in M&A where we keep pushing. Leading indicators are gradually improving and our energy level is high. All in all, me and my management team are enthusiastic about what lies ahead. I'll leave you with this page, an illustration of the external and internal, organic and acquisitive building blocks that will take us all the way to the 2030 flag pole, we have put in the ground. We expect demand in consumer and projects to bounce back, the EU's Green transformation to kick in from 2026, our own efforts to add value, and new businesses to be added to our portfolio. We are making good progress on this super exciting journey, and I dare to say that we have only scratched the surface yet. And now Peter and I will be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from Nordea.

Just a question first on the gross margin decline in Eastern Europe as a result of increased competition. Is this competition from local players? And can you give us some flavor on how you expect the margin to develop going forward? And then also, you mentioned that you grab market share in your main markets. Is this also the case for Finland? And if so, are you doing it through pricing with regards to the gross margin?

I think we hand this one over to you, Peter, first of all, if you don't mind.

Okay. The first question, yes, it's all local products. Finland has a special product. All markets have a special product, I must say. But Finland has a really special product. So they are very little imports, some import from the Baltics, but quite small. So it's local producers. The market is tough. The pricing is tough and thereby, the margin has been lower. Now we're also comparing to Q4 last year. Finland, in Finland, most of our sales is -- not most, but a quite high degree of our sales is product sales. Meaning we take the orders and delivers 6 to 9 months later. And in Q4, we had deliveries of orders with prices taking when the prices was at top and at the same time, the material prices went down in Q4. So we had a double positive impact, when looking at margins. And thereby, the margins in Q4 2023 was quite high for Eastern Europe. It was also high in Q4 2022, but that was more related to volume. We had a really good volume in Q4 2022 before the market started to decline in 2023. So looking at the margins for Eastern Europe, 2024, and we are a couple of percent units behind the level of 2019 until 2021. So it's not such a big gap between '24 and prior 2023 and 2022. The next question, if we have gained market shares, we don't know yet for Q4, we're not seen data for Q4 yet. But yes, we believe we have gained some market shares. And yes, we have been -- we have -- it's -- I must say it's due to pricing in that sense that we have reduced the prices more compared to the competitors. The whole markets has gone down in prices, and we have followed the market. And we have -- I think we are a little bit higher, not as much as the market has declined. But we have been able to gain market shares. I think that some customers are going to ask due to our size, also due to our quality when it comes to delivery times, but also due to the sustainability. We Have been able to launch new products where we have reduced the CO2 as Fredrik was mentioning about. Last question going to the future. I foresee, I don't think we're going to go back in the near future to the level of 2023 when it comes to margins. So I think you have to look more to prior 2023 when we look at the margin development for Eastern Europe.

All right. But should one expect the gross margins to be higher than 24%? Or is this normal level here coming years? On a full year basis.

We foresee better market conditions in 2025 compared to 2024. We can see that order intake is going up. We can see that we have a high order backlog now when the year starts. And this will then mean that we will have a higher volume in '25 compared to 2024. And with the higher volume, everything else equal, we will have a better margins. You should remember that in 2024, especially the first 6 months, the market was very tough in Finland, and we decreased our capacity quite much, and we were not running full weeks in our production units. So we foresee a better volume and with better volume, we can then expect better margins.

Perfect. And then consumer order intake down 2% since e-commerce is going quite well in that sense and also Eastern is starting to pick up consumer. Is it fair to think that the Western Europe is the weak link here? Or can you give us a split between business areas for consumer order intake?

Yes. E-commerce is up and e-commerce is only selling on the consumer market. The other markets, we have a small decline -- just below 0 in Scandinavia as well as in Western Europe, we have a small decline. So the decline is -- and then we have a larger decline when it comes to Eastern Europe.

All right. And then just one finally. I think at least you, Fredrik, usually say that the acquisition is hard to forecast since they either happen or don't happen. But in order to reach your growth target, you need some 7%, 8% every year. So what's your best guess for M&A during '25? And also, if you can tell us something about most likely countries for M&A, et cetera.

Yes. No, thank you. That's a relevant question, of course. Yes, and it would have been fantastic to be able to announce a new deal, a sizable one already today. But I'm quite comfortable with this. I think actually, since our latest report, the Q3 one and our discussions at the Capital Markets Day, activity level has continued up a bit which is good. We have a couple of active cases, I would say. It doesn't mean per se that exactly these ones will happen, but it, of course, increases the likelihood. Timing is still super tricky, partly because of some market uncertainty still prevailing and partly because these companies are typically private, family-owned, second, third generation, not always up to speed on how these processes work, et cetera. And we need to pay attention to that. So we take a step by step. We have cases in both existing geographic markets, but also in new geographic markets that we're looking at. And that's, as we stated before, this is basically anything south of where we are today, so more towards Central Europe. But we're looking quite broadly into Central Europe. So it's everything from adding to the western part of our Western Europe BA, which could involve, of course, Benelux, but then we're moving also into France, Germany, the out countries, but we're also quite actively looking into what some referred to more as Eastern Europe. So Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, the Balkans, et cetera, et cetera. So quite a broad approach. Again, we're looking for the new market entries. We're looking for solid incumbents, not smaller add-ons typically but someone who's already got a sizable business that's well reputed with a strong management team, et cetera, et cetera. We're, of course, in parallel, trying to figure out what will happen with this EU Green deal transformation in each member country. And that is still a moving target. In Sweden, as you know, Bougas will come up with some clarity on that picture in March this year. And I guess that will happen in most of the other EU member countries as well. And that can, of course, have some kind of impact on our appetite for a certain geographic jurisdiction. But overall, I'm actually -- I'm very happy with the structured approach that we're taking. I'm happy with the fact that quite a few ones are bouncing on our door every now and then, inviting us to processes and auctions and so forth. So yes, optimistic about it.

The next question comes from Jonny Jin from SEB.

I want to follow up a little bit here on the gross margin and particularly assuming in on Scandinavia a little bit. So I can see that the gross margin is very strong in Scandinavia. And I was wondering if you could elaborate here a little bit. Is it mainly a mix that drives the strength or are we seeing other signs like efficiency gains also starting to shine through? That would be helpful if you can comment around that.

If I start perhaps, Peter, and you can, as usual, fill in with more -- even more quality. I think overall, we have a good portfolio of companies within the BA Scandinavia. And they're all gradually doing better. At the same time, we must not forget that Norway is still in the doldrums, and I don't think you will take off to the next level, at least not in the first half of this year. It will take some time for Norway and the Norwegian market to get back on its feet. Overall, you're correct in the fact that we have some efficiency gains that are flowing through in the operational platform. Having said that, there is more to come, should be more to come, partly through more volume flowing through as the markets normalize and partly because some of the restructuring work and I'll take the Vetlanda factory of Elitfönster as one good example. That work is not done yet. It's still work in progress, good progress on that project, but it won't be ready fully until the end of this year, meaning that you won't see any full efficiency gains coming out of that until early 2026, I would say. On top of that, as usual, in our industry, if you just "deliver the right products according to the right spec at the right place, then you are in a good position to charge a decent price for that." And I think that's partly what we've been doing. We have a very solid and smooth running operational setup and increasing confidence in our pricing, which is something we have talked quite a lot about. We have more and more of best practice sharing across the entities. And all of that adds up to a better situation, I think, than before. But let's not forget that it's still a competitive playing field out there for Scandinavia. So overall, I think they've done a really good job. Peter, anything else you want to comment on there?

No. not more than we have also have a volume growth in this quarter compared to last year. So we have higher volume in Scandinavia compared to last year. Otherwise, nothing more to add.

Okay. That was very clear. And then I want to go back to Eastern Europe a little bit. I know we already touched upon the gross margin profile in Eastern Europe but zooming into cost and the OpEx side in Eastern Europe. I was wondering, could you shed some comments around that? It appears to cost is up a little bit. So I was wondering, are there anything particular that drove the cost in Finland, for instance, in this quarter? Or how should we think about the cost development in Finland going forward?

You want to take that, Peter?

We have a little bit higher cost in -- depending on what kind of cost we're looking into. The material cost is up compared to last year in Finland, and that has a negative impact on the margins, especially the gross margins compared to last year. The other costs slightly up, and we have been also now looking into our prediction for the future. We foresee a better market in 2025 compared to 2024. Last year, 1 year ago, we foresee a really tough start of 2024. And thereby, we started also to take down the cost levels connected to that. If we believe that market will be somewhat better, we don't believe in a big large increase in '25, but we foresee a little bit better market conditions in '25 compared to 2024 and we have started to plan and adjust for that as well.

Okay. That was clear. And then just on the order backlog, specifically on the project side of the backlog, can you say something about the profitability in that backlog? I suppose it mainly relates to the U.K. So can we expect similar profitability in the backlog as the current profitability levels we see now in Western Europe.

I think when it comes to the backlog and particularly for Western Europe and even more particularly if we talk about Sidey and for example, the record order that they took here in Q4. One has to look at what is take on margin and then what is actual pocket margin. And theoretically, of course, with a project this size, which is fully open books, auction, open bidding for this North Lanarkshire Council in Scotland. Then of course, competition is really fierce. At the same time, we are really, really on top of our cost base, meaning that we have a really nice record of getting the -- already the take-on margin at a nice level. Then again, we have a very strong track record of avoiding leakages throughout the life of the project and in fact, trying to find even more efficiencies throughout the life of the project, meaning that the actual pocket margin ends up at least in line with or in some cases, higher than the take on margin, meaning that -- I mean, to answer your question, I think when I look at it, I think the quality of the backlog margin-wise is actually rather healthy. Because it's also, as Peter alluded to earlier, when we talked about Eastern Europe, in some cases, whoever is responsible for handing out these projects to a supplier is really, really keen on making sure that the supplier will be around in 18, 24 months' time, and deliver the goods according to the specs. And so in some cases, price is not everything that counts. There are a couple of other parameters, thankfully that are involved in this as well, meaning that we, in some cases, actually have less competition just because of our track record and our capabilities. So overall, just to answer your question, I think the quality of the backlog is actually -- is quite healthy.

The next question comes from Lina Blume from Handelsbanken.

Order intake was flat in the Scandinavia. Is it possible to say if this was primarily due to headwinds in Norway? Or did the Swedish market also see a decline in orders?

Yes. Peter, go ahead, please.

The Swedish market was a little bit positive compared to last year in the quarter. The decline was mainly related to Norway. We have on -- it is splitted between consumer industry for Scandinavia, the industry was slightly positive -- low positive with 5%, 6%, where the consumer was just below last year.

And then on the same topic, you mentioned signs of cautious recovery in the Swedish consumer market. Compared to Q3, would you say that you have seen an improvement in the market?

Yes. I think we have a couple of more data points. I mean, you guys read the statistics just as much as we do. But the fact that if we take Sweden as an example, the fact that we have more transactions going on in the residential housing market and that prices are gradually getting up a bit, is, for us, a good sign. Then it is, as we said earlier, there is always a bit of a lag between, for example, interest rate cuts by Riksbanken and households seeing that they have more money left in their wallets and then taking that money to go and spend it on various consumption things, including windows and doors. But overall, I'd say all else equal, including weather and stuff, we have more positive leading indicators now than just a few months ago. Yes.

That was all for me.

Maybe Lina, just to add to that. No, it just struck me. I mean, maybe just a few words about the new build market as well. We are -- when I talk to various property developers and property owners, they are, of course, increasing in -- again, pushing the control F9 button to see that their projects now look more healthy and more profitable, i.e., they get going on some of the projects that were previously put on hold when the whole market came into a downturn of the cycle. But there is more optimism there as well, I think. And to add to that, the low-carbon window that we launched in Finland this fourth quarter is an excellent example of something that grabs a lot of people's attention over a very short time span actually because it really ticks the boxes that they need to tick where they are under quite a lot of pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. And since they have quite a few windows and they need to replace them every now and then, using a window like this one, albeit a little bit more expensive than a traditional window, helps them reduce their carbon footprint by quite a substantial margin.

Congratulations for a good report.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Okay. Thank you, operator. And there are no written questions. So we hereby end have some words from Fredrik.

Yes. Well, I think we wrap it up. Thank you, Peter, first of all, and thanks, everyone out there for listening. Have a really nice day, have an Inwido day, as we say. Thank you very much.