Kitron ASA ($KIT)

Good morning, and welcome to Kitron's Q1 2026 Results Presentation. I'm Peter Nilsson, and I'm joined, as always, by our CFO, Cathrin Nylander. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. The theme for today's call is in the slide in front of you, from record to runway. Q1 was the strongest quarter in our history, and that's important. But what's more important is what it tells us about the year and the years ahead. So while we'll walk you through the numbers in detail, I want you to leave this call thinking less about Q1 itself and more what's lining up behind it. I'll cover the quarter highlights, our operational position, sector and backlog trends and the strategic outlook. Cathrin will then take you through the financials in detail. After that, I'll close with what we believe is the most important slide in the deck, the case for our medium-term ambition. We'll then open the floor for your questions. So with that, let's get started. Next slide, please. Q1. Q1 2026 was in every meaningful measure, the strongest quarter ever. Revenue was close to EUR 273 million, up almost 66% year-on-year. Operating profit close to EUR 26 million, more than doubled. Margin at 9.4% above our 9% core target. Order backlog grew to nearly EUR 806 million, a new record and up 54% year-on-year. Book-to-bill at 1.35, meaning we're building backlog faster than we're working it down. But the real story isn't any single number. The real story is that all of our 5 market sectors grew year-on-year. Defense and aerospace was exceptional, more than tripled and now represents around half of group revenue, up from roughly 1/4 12 months ago. But connectivity was up almost 30% Medical close to 20%. Electrification and industry both positive. The diversification we've been talking about for several years is showing up in the numbers. I want to flag one thing upfront before Cathrin gets into the numbers. Our 9.4% margin was above target, but it was below what we were aiming for internally. We had expected slightly more. I'll come back to this in a moment when we talk about operations, but I want to acknowledge it upfront because owning the things that didn't go as well as we'd hoped is just as important as celebrating the things that did. With that, let me walk you through where we stand operationally. So next slide, please. Four points on operations and growth. First, operational momentum. Customer ramp-ups are progressing well across all sites. The new Swedish facility is complete. The Norway site is on track for handover and startup and our Polish capacity expansion of about 40% is paying off. CEE was the biggest single contributor in Q1. Both CEE and Asia delivered margins above 10% in the quarter. Second, and this is what I flagged on the previous slide, Q1 efficiency. We expected slightly more on margin than we delivered. Three factors held us back. We introduced many new employees during the quarter, all requiring training and start-up time. Demand intensity in some areas outran the responsiveness of our suppliers, which created some late supply deliveries and lost capacity. And as we entered the quarter with less front-end loading in our order book than would have been ideal, meaning when the supplier didn't ship, we had less flexibility. And battery ran out, had less flexibility and weren't able to switch the line to something else. Neither of these are a structural problem. We know how to fix them, and now they're built into our planning for the rest of the year. I'd rather flag it early than dress it up. Third, M&A. The DeltaNordic acquisition closed and was consolidated effective January 1. Approximately EUR 74 million of predicted '26 revenue, around half of it from defense customers with 2 Swedish production sites and 1 in Nanjing. Integration is proceeding above expectations. Capability and customers are added from day 1. And to meet '26 to 2030 demand, we've extended the Kungsängen facility, accredited the Kitron Jön shipping facility to serve select customers and are planning a new facility in Örnsköldsvik for early 2028, doubling capacity, footprint and employees. Fourth, our 2026 outlook. We're now trending towards the upper half of the ranges previously communicated 2026 outlook of EUR 900 million to EUR 1.05 billion in revenue and EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million in EBIT. Our hesitation on further growth is hampered by supply chain efficiency. If we see relief over the next quarter, we're likely to reassess. Our confidence in this range rests on 3 mutually reinforcing foundations: a record backlog, a book-to-bill ratio above 1 and the deepest pipeline of new opportunities we've ever carried into a quarter. Now let's look at the sector picture. So next slide, please. The chart on the right tells the story at a glance. Defense and aerospace is the headline. Sector revenue. The chart on the right tells the story at a glance. defense and aerospace is the headline with EUR 137 million in the quarter, up 213% year-on-year. That's more than 3x where we were a year ago. And now it's around half of group revenue, up from 27% last year. But -- and this is the point I want you to take away from this slide. Every single sector grew. Connectivity was up 28%, driven by industrial IoT and smart metering, both structurally growing categories benefiting from data center expansion and regulations. Medical devices was up 19% with critical care and patient care leading the way. Industry grew 8%, but more importantly, industry showed a clear inflection point in order intake in the quarter, including brand-new mining and construction program building backlog very quickly. We see this as an early indicator of broader recovery cycle in the nondefense sector. And electrification was up 4% with grid demand intact and power conversion ramping nicely on data center demand. A year ago, the conversation we'd be having on this slide would have been, well, defense is doing well, but the rest is mixed. This quarter, it's defense is exceptional and the rest is growing. That's a meaningful shift and one of the reasons we have so much confidence in the year ahead. Now let me turn to the backlog and forward visibility because that's where the picture for the rest of the year really comes into focus. So next slide, please. This slide is, in many ways, the most important one we'll show you today on the operational side. Order backlog is almost EUR 806 million, a new record, up 54% and 14% sequentially. Book-to-bill ratio is 1.35, well above the level needed to keep backlog growing. Defense and aerospace now represents 59% of the total backlog, up from 45% a year ago. Our R6, the rolling 6-month forward demand look stands at approximately EUR 590 million. That's a very strong number. But I want to be careful about how you read it because I don't want anyone leaving this call with the wrong expectations about quarterly cadence. Two things to keep in mind. First, R6 is intentionally front-loaded. We deliberately built approximately 10% of flexibility into it. So when the supply chain variability hits, exactly the sort of variability we saw in Q1, we have some work to absorb it without disrupting customer commitments and revenue. So the EUR 590 million does not mean 2 consecutive quarters of around EUR 300 million. Second, Q3 is particularly seasonally softer for us than other quarters. That's a normal feature of our calendar and not a sign of demand softness. What means most on this slide is not a precise R6 number. It's the structural shape of the backlog, record book, broad sector distribution and book-to-bill comfortably above 1 and customer relationships that are deepening rather than broadening. We have never entered the quarter with this much forward visibility. And with that, I'll hand over to Cathrin for some financial details. Cathrin, go ahead.

Thank you. Next slide, please. Thank you, Peter. Let me walk you through the financial picture in more detail. Starting with the headline numbers. Revenue of EUR 272.7 million, up 65.7% year-on-year. EBITDA at EUR 25.6 million, up 105%. EBIT margin of 9.4%, which is 180 basis points higher than Q1 last year. EBITDA of EUR 31.8 million, up 86%. Net income of EUR 20 million, up 163%. EPS of EUR 0.09 more than doubled from EUR 0.04. Operating cash flow at EUR 5 million is below the EUR 12.1 million we generated in Q1 last year. That requires a comment, and I'll walk you through it on the cash flow side in a moment. The short version is that high growth on a record order book absorbs working capital before it converts. On the balance sheet ratios, and there are some of the metrics I'm most pleased with. ROOC R3 at 38.7% is more than double than the 18.7% we reported a year ago. Net working capital R3 as a percentage of sales has improved 15.7% -- improved to 15.7% from 28.6%. Cash conversion cycle R3 is down to 53 days from 111 days, below our 60-day target. Net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA is at 0.5x, down from 1.6x, and our equity ratio is 40%. To Peter's earlier point on Q1 efficiency, yes, we expected slightly more on the margin. The capacity build and supply timing affecting the production mix in the quarter, particularly in our Nordics and North America region. We have addressed it in our planning. Underlying capital efficiency is in very good shape. So let me now show you the regional breakdown. Next slide, please. Three regions, 3 tables. Starting with revenue. CEE is now our largest region by revenue at EUR 131.5 million in Q1, which is up 155% year-on-year. This is largely the Polish capacity expansion delivering, supporting key customer ramp-ups in defense. Nordics and North America came in at EUR 117.7 million, up 26% year-on-year. Solid growth but slightly below where we wanted to be on the bottom line. Asia at EUR 26.3 million, up 25%. Group eliminations as usual. On EBIT, CEE delivered EUR 17.9 million, a margin of 13.6%. Asia delivered EUR 2.7 million at a margin above 10%. Both regions are running well above our 9% target. Nordics and North America delivered EUR 9.4 million, which is an 8% margin, slightly below target. This is where the Q1 supply timing issues that Peter mentioned showed up in the numbers. The CEE and Asia regions absorbed the growth without difficulty. The Nordics had less buffer. We are not concerned about this structurally. It reflects a mix of demand intensity and front-loading at specific Nordic sites. But it's where our attention is focused for the remainder of the year. On headcount, we ended the quarter with 3,373 FTEs, up 982 from a year ago, an increase of 41%. This is the capacity buildup that supports the backlog conversion. Most of the growth have been in CEE, where we have added almost 600 people in 12 months. Let me now walk you through the organic versus inorganic split. Next slide, please. Kitron Eltech, formerly DeltaNordic, was consolidated from 1st of January with no prior year comparables. So the tables on this side split Q1 into organic and inorganic to give you a clean underlying read. First, the Eltech number themselves. The site contributed to EUR 14.6 million in revenue. Our profit before purchase price allocation and depreciation was EUR 1.6 million, an 11% margin, which sits above the group's 9.4%. After EUR 0.6 million PPA depreciation on excess values, reported EBIT from Eltech site was EUR 0.9 million. Now the organic view. Excluding Eltech, revenue grew almost 57% year-on-year. Defense and aerospace tripled organically, up 196%. Connectivity, Electrification and Medical are essentially pure organic growth. The one sector where the split matters is industry. Organic revenue was down 8% against a strong Q1 2025 comparator and the EUR 6.7 million Eltech contribution is what takes reported growth into positive territory. On the order book, organic backlog is up 38% to EUR 724 million. So record visibility even without the acquisition. Eltech adds EUR 82 million on top, mostly in defense and aerospace and industry. One note on book-to-bill. Group book-to-bill is 1.35x. Organic book-to-bill is 1.06x. So organic backlog is still building. The difference is Eltech's intake of EUR 96.5 million, most of which affects multiyear framework agreements that came on to the books on consolidation rather than Q1 order activity. In short, a record quarter on an organic basis with Eltech integrating cleanly and contributing from day 1. Now cash flow and working capital. Next slide, please. The cash flow story in Q1 is straightforward, but worth explaining clearly. Operating cash flow was EUR 5 million and lower than the EUR 12.1 million we generated in Q1 last year. The reason is on the third line of the cash flow table, change in inventory, accounts receivable, contract assets and accounts payables was negative EUR 26.7 million in the quarter versus a negative EUR 2 million last year. In other words, working capital absorbed cash. This is what high growth does on a record order book. You build inventory and contract assets ahead of shipping, you carry receivables before they collect and the timing creates a temporary drag. The important thing to look at is the underlying quality. Net working capital ended at EUR 173.2 million, which is down 9% from EUR 189.8 million (sic) EUR 189.9 million a year ago, even though revenue is up 66%. This is a meaningful improvement in capital intensity. Net working capital R3 as a percentage of sales is 15.7%, almost half from 28.6% a year ago. The structural cash quality is intact and improving. Investing cash flow of negative EUR 67.5 million reflects the DeltaNordic settlement of approximately EUR 59 million in January. Excluding the acquisition, underlying CapEx is disciplined and in line with our normal pattern. So to summarize, cash flow timing was affected by working capital absorbing high growth, but the underlying ratios continue to improve. We expect cash flow to normalize as the quarter's working capital build converts. Let me now walk you through the financial ratios. Next slide, please. The ratios on this slide are, in many ways, the cleanest summary of how the business is performing. Three things stand out. First, ROOC R3 at 38.7%, more than double the 18.7% we delivered a year ago. This is operating leverage on a stable cost base. The business is converting growth into return on operating capital at a rate that puts us in the top quartile of our industry. Second, balance sheet strength. Net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA at 0.5x, down from 1.8x -- 1.6x. Net gearing at 0.13, down from 0.52. Equity ratio at 40%. Even after the DeltaNordic settlement in January, leverage remains conservative. We have plenty of room on the balance sheet to support continued growth, including additional M&A if we find the right opportunities. Third, EPS at $0.09, more than double from $0.04 a year ago. Revenue growth is translating directly into shareholder return. Cash conversion cycle R3 improved to 53 days from 111 days. We are below our 60-day target, and we expect to stay there over the course of 2026. The headline I'd leave you with on this slide, every important capital efficiency and balance sheet ratio is improving year-on-year, and most of them have improved very significantly. With that, let me hand back to Peter for the strategic outlook. Next slide, please. You're muted.

Thanks, Cathrin. Thanks, well done. Well, a pipeline like never before. This slide is the one I want you to remember from today. Everything we talked about so far, the record quarter, the record backlog, the operational platform, it all serves a bigger story. From record acknowledging -- acknowledges Q1 what it was. Record revenue, record backlog, record pipeline. If you've seen the numbers, you know the record is real. From record to runway tells us that Q1 isn't the destination. It's a clear acceleration surface. The record results are not the peak. They are the conditions what makes -- what comes next possible. Kitron has the runway, the visibility, the fuel and the room to accelerate. The question we've been asked fairly is what makes you think we can get there? The answer is on this slide. We already have a record order book of EUR 806 million. This is the most important point. Our pipeline is qualified as qualified opportunities for '26 and '27 that are the deepest in Kitron's history. Customers are engaging with us earlier in the product life cycle on larger programs and on longer time horizons. Third, our multiregional manufacturing platform is now engineered for speed and scale, exactly the capabilities our customers are asking for. And behind that pipeline, 3 structural themes are doing the heavy lifting. European defense rearmament, NATO commitments rising towards 3.5% of GDP or beyond, multiyear program cycles and 8 Kitron sites in Europe and the U.S. positioned for defense primes and new defense tech. Grid and data center electrification, power conversion, grid modernization, data center infrastructure, a multiyear demand cycle that is already showing up in our electrification recovery, but also having a strong impact on industrial IoT, HVAC and other industrial products in this quarter. Industrial digitalization, Industry 4.0 retrofit, advanced sensors, mining, agriculture and infrastructure automation. That's where the Q1 inflection in our industry sector is, and we believe that's a leading indicator of much more to come. These 3 themes are not cyclical bets. There are structural shifts in how the world is investing in defense, energy and industry. And Kitron is positioned at the intersection of all 3. We're not going to reach EUR 1.5 billion in a single year, but the path is visible to us in a way that it's never been before, and I have full confidence in our team to convert that pipeline into sales. Now let me summarize the key takeaways from today. So next slide, please. One, record revenue broad-based growth, close to EUR 273 million in revenue, up almost 66% year-on-year. All 5 sectors grew. Defense aerospace tripled and now represents half of group revenue. Two, profitability above target with room to do better. EBIT close to EUR 26 million at 9.4%, above our core 9% target. Q1 efficiency was held back by supply chain timing, front-end loading and significant training as we ramp personnel. I mean almost 1,000 employees more compared to Q1 last year and a lot of employees added in the Nordic sites during Q1. Three, record order book, deepest pipeline ever. Backlog at close trade under EUR 6 million, 54% up, book-to-bill at 1.35, R6 at EUR 590 million, intentionally front-loaded for flexibility. Four, DeltaNordic onboard from day 1, acquisition completed, consolidated effective January 1. And the team and the integration with the teams has been the best we've ever seen. Approximately EUR 74 million of projected revenue in '26 and half of it from defense customers. A new facility in Örnsköldsvik is planned. Number five, on the road to EUR 1.5 billion. We're now trending towards the upper half of the ranges previously communicated of EUR 900 million to EUR 1.05 billion in revenue and EUR 84 million to EUR 108 million in EBIT. And the pipeline of opportunities we're working on across '26 and '27 supports our medium-term ambition of EUR 1.5 billion in annual revenue. We have the platform, we have the pipeline, we have the people. Now Kitron, we deliver. And with that, Cathrin and I are ready to take some of your questions.

And I believe we have quite a lot of questions today.

We do. And we don't have much time. So you need to leave not far from 9:00 Peter.

That's basically about now. So I'll grab a couple and then I'll head down to my transportation. The first question is about the Norwegian government with the new agreement with Ukraine with drone manufacturing in Norway. So question is, is Kitron involved in this? And so as far as I know, the project is still under secrecy Act, and we don't have a comment on it. Eirik has many questions here about Q1 revenue and customer -- you can -- okay, Q1 revenue is high, R6 demand implies only EUR 188 million need for Q4 revenue to reach top end guidance for '26. Why not lift guidance early? I think we've reflected on that. And we've said we'll reassess in Q2 as we see how the supply chain develops in regards to global challenges on supply chain and whatever is going on in the Middle East and those things that's happening.

You also say that the R6 is front loaded. So that will come into Q4, Eirik.

Unless we'd be able to deliver all of it, which would be fantastic, but not likely. Customers engaging earlier on longer programs, how that effect impact orders ahead. Well, hopefully, yes, the orders will come in. It's not going to -- when we talk about that, we're not talking specifically about this year. There could be something in Q4, who knows. But it's building the future for '27 and beyond. EBIT above our core 9%. What's a reasonable margin to assume given the current momentum? Cathrin help me out here.

I say between 9.5% and I think -- I wouldn't go much higher than that because we are growing and we're planning to grow more. So we need to bring in facilities. We need to bring in people. But we noticed in this quarter.

That was it from Eirik. And then we have Øystein saying you see the deepest pipeline you've ever seen. Is it mostly defense related or broadly across more sectors. I think it's both. I think it's both, right? There's a lot of new defense tech that we're discussing with engaging very early in those programs much, much earlier than we have before. We are the go-to partner on these things now. So many of these customers, new customers are coming to us. And we -- I know we've said that before, but the opportunities now are much, much stronger. What drove the strong order intake in industry? I mean, number one, we added one of the big minor customers that we had before in Kitron, but we added that through DeltaNordic acquisition. And the order intake there has been really strong in the quarter. We're continuing to grow both in our Kungsängen facility and in our Nanjing facility, which directly supplies into the Chinese market, that kind of mining equipment. So that's a strong intake there. What else do we see in the industry sector? I think I spoke a bit about how data center expansion affects many different parts of our -- both industrial and connectivity sector. The big growth in connectivity, usually, we talk about tracking equipment being the high growth and the largest. It is still the largest subsector within connectivity. But we see that our industrial IoT customers are expanding. And really, when we look at the order backlog Q1 this year compared to Q1 last year on industrial IoT, it is up a lot, 40%, 50% order backlog growth on industrial IoT. And when we ask our customers, what's driving this? Well, they're saying data center demand, right? And why in data centers? Well, the cost per trip to a data center is pretty high. It's much cheaper to install industrial IoT, have better surveillance of what's going on and able to automate things that need to be adjusted much cheaper and quicker. Capacity expansion plans previously from Martine. Can you say something more about your capacity expansion plans? And also, there's previously communicated capacity potential of [ EUR 500 million ] in Europe and U.S., [ EUR 200 million ] in the U.S. Where are we on these numbers now, right? The U.S., we're ramping to over $100 million this year if we can get there, and over $100 million this year if we can get there. The product mix has changed. So it's much bigger products. We're delivering bigger units into data centers. So footprint in the U.S. is -- by mid this year is going to be filling up very, very quickly. So that will only give us about half of what we need in the U.S. So we're looking at what the options are there. EUR 500 million in Europe, right? Again, that was based on us building only the electronics, right? So SMT lines and high automation, what we're seeing is we're delivering complete systems. So there's a lot more -- if you look at the factory in Poland, there's probably 7 to 8 big semi-trucks with trailers leaving the factory every single day, right? If that was electronics, it would be 10 boxes maybe. But here, it's a lot of big equipment. We're building complete. I don't want to get into the detail of what we're doing.

There are also -- we are doing what we call short-term expansions as well. So...

So that's why the footprint in Poland is not just that site that we spoke about earlier, but we have an additional 2 sites that are in that vicinity supporting that expansion. It would have never been able if had we not been -- had the ability, the agility and the speed to react in the way we've done.

Okay. Martine has a question here on expanding stronger demand in industry, which I think we have actually already answered -- the electrification and particularly data centers is doing well, I think.

Yes, ramping up. Not at full output yet, but getting there. March was a good month. January, February struggled. The capacity was there, the people were there. So that's why the cost was there, but the material wasn't there. Now in March, they delivered a solid revenue and solid profitability. So we understand that to keep going in April and onwards.

Okay. So just short, Nojus asks whether the defense aero revenue will go up further in the coming quarters and the percentage share. We expect it to be about the same, I think, actually during the year.

At least now in the second and third quarter, we'll see what happens in the fourth.

Correct. And then what areas within D&A are you seeing the largest growth opportunities now? And after that, we have to close.

We have probably half a dozen defense primes that are still not in production, but in either negotiation or in contractual discussions with. So those are some of the longer terms over the next 2 to 5 years growth opportunities. In the short term, it's going to be new defense tech, where there's also a lot of interest and discussions, but we'll get to that when we announce it.

Yes. And then with that...

With that we'll have to sign off because I have to rush off. Thank you, everyone.

Okay. Thank you.