Storskogen Group AB (publ) (STORB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Storskogen Q4 presentation for 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christer Hansson; and CFO, Lena Glader. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of Storskogen's report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. I'm Christer Hansson, CEO of Storskogen; and with me today is Lena Glader, our CFO. As we close the year, operational execution has remained our top priority. We have continued to strengthen our balance sheet and financial position throughout the year, while navigating an uncertain macro environment, and we are now in a new phase where we are able to increasingly focus on achieving long-term growth. Storskogen is a diversified international business group with sales of approximately SEK 33 billion of the last year and adjusted EBITA of approximately SEK 3.1 billion spread across our 3 business areas Services, Trade and Industry. At year-end, the group consists of 114 business units with an average annual sales of around SEK 290 million. On this slide, you may note a new face. Jesper Kronstrand has joined the group as Head of Business Area Services, and he is succeeding Peter Ahlgren, Storskogen's first employee beyond the founders and a key architect of the group. We are very pleased to welcome Jesper, who most recently served as the CEO of our business unit, SoVent. I will return to some additional management comments later in the presentation. Turning to the highlights for the quarter and the full year. I'm pleased that we have, for the first time since 2022, concluded the year with organic sales growth in the quarter of 5% and 2% for the full year. On the other hand, in terms of profitability, the picture is mixed across the business areas. For the quarter and the full year, we had a decline of 5% of the adjusted EBITA, which includes significant FX transaction effects. During the quarter, we completed 4 acquisitions with combined annual sales of approximately SEK 142 million. We had a share buyback of SEK 100 million that came to completion in January. Overall, I'm not satisfied with the full year outcome in absolute terms. Going into 2025, we anticipated a stronger sales, higher earnings and clear margin expansions. However, given the environment we have been operating in, I'm pleased with the progress that we have made in many areas across the group. Our companies have delivered solid cash flows and done significant work on balance sheet discipline. This has put us in a meaningfully stronger position and allow us to move into a new phase with more emphasis on growth-supporting initiative, as we clearly outlined already in Q3. Operational focus remains key as market continues to be uncertain and that will remain our clear priority going forward to support our long-term growth. I'd like to turn briefly to our cash flow performance, that continues to be a key strength enabling, for example, the just mentioned completed share buyback and resumed acquisitions. Worth noting, Q4 last year was an exceptional quarter, while Q4 of 2025 is in line with our expectation as cash conversion is moving towards the 70% target. The year-on-year change is mainly due to change in working capital. In these fairly challenging markets, I'm pleased that the group is trending at around SEK 2.5 billion to SEK 3 billion in cash flow on an LTM basis. This cash flow over the past year reflects continued disciplined operational execution across the group and remains fundamental to our business model and capital allocation. This slide illustrates seasonal variation alongside our solid performance on a rolling 12-month basis. Quarterly performance naturally fluctuates with Q1 typically being the softest quarter, but diversification across industry, geographies and end market provides relative stability over time, as you can see on the right. Even with ups and downs in underlying demand, the group's breadth supports resilient margins and cash flows, while it's core -- which is a core advantage of the Storskogen model, which we will get into, as we now take a closer look at the development of the 3 business areas. In Services organic growth for the full year was minus 5% in net sales, whilst EBITA showed a negative of 10%. The fourth quarter was softer for Business Services, while full year performance was broadly in line with last year. Infrastructure Services was negatively affected by continued weak demand in construction-related segments. As always, Q1 is seasonally softer for Services. But it's worth noting that Q4 of 2024 as well as Q1 of last year provided strong indication of improvement -- improved sentiment with strong margins. This changed quickly due to uncertainty related to global trade. Business units exposed to construction continue to be negatively affected. That said, the current comparables are quite unfavorable. Jesper Kronstrand steps into his new role as Head of Services, bringing both experience from within the group and also adding fresh operational energy and focus as we continue to navigate a challenging market. Trade delivered positive organic sales and EBITA growth for the full year as well for the fourth quarter, and we continue to see momentum into 2026. Consumer Products was positively affected by improved demand and certain orders landing in Q4 rather than in Q1. Professional Products was largely in line with last year, but improved margins. A strong SEK was margin supportive. And Q1 continues to be a seasonally softer quarter even for Trade. Overall, the development in Trade compared to Services provide a good example of the diversified approach in action, with Services currently dealing with a bit of headwinds and Trade benefiting from current tailwinds. In Industry, the sales growth for the full year was 5% with EBITA declining with 5%. The negative organic profit growth was significantly impacted by unfavorable FX transaction effects. We continue to see FX headwinds in January as well. Divestments affects fourth quarter sales and EBITA by approximately minus 2%. Underlying organic sales growth in Q4 was 7%. Development for Industry compared to Services and Trade is somewhere in between, with order books remaining solid, and we're heading into 2026 with good visibility for parts of the portfolio. If you look at our capital allocation over the past 12 months, we've gradually begun to deploy capital towards selective acquisitions. For 2025, this sums up to 9 acquisitions, 3 platforms and 6 add-ons, with collectively annual sales of approximately SEK 400 million and a margin north of 20%. We've also made one divestment in 2025 on Motavo Group, a chain of hair salon with annual sales of approximately SEK 280 million and a margin below our 10% group target. The divestments as part of our continued effort to refine and sharpen our portfolio. With hair care, we are increasingly focused on our exposure towards the B2B-oriented businesses where we see stronger structural attractiveness. More broadly, organizational and portfolio streaming has been an ongoing theme for Storskogen since 2024 with fewer verticals, clear investment theme and strategic divestments when relevant. With that, I will hand over to Lena for a more detailed financial review.

Thank you, Christer. Let's begin with the financial performance for the fourth quarter adjusted for items affecting comparability on this page. Net sales in Q4 came in at SEK 8.7 billion, representing 2% growth compared to the same quarter last year. For the full year, sales declined by 3% to SEK 33.1 billion. We will walk through the detailed sales bridge later on in the presentation in a while. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by 3% in Q4 and EBITA fell by 4%. For the full year, both metrics were down 3% year-on-year, which means that our full year EBITA margin remained unchanged at 9.4%, as Christer illustrated before. There are 3 key drivers behind the year-on-year EBITA decline. First of all, we had, as mentioned, a currency effect, which continued to weigh negatively on results in Q4 and that also explained actually a large part of the EBITA decline. Further, we had mix effects, as we also discussed before, in this quarter. We have seen strong growth in verticals with somewhat lower margins such as, for instance, the industrial technology within Business Area Industry, that also explains a part of the margin decline. And finally, Business Area Services faced a tough comparison against a strong Q4 last year, and the slower construction market this year made it challenging to reach the same levels, as Christer just described. On the positive side, however, we saw a solid margin uplift in Trade and lower central costs, both of which contributed favorably to the margin development. EBIT for the fourth quarter was SEK 640 million, down 2% year-on-year and corresponding to a margin of 7.3% compared to 7.6% in Q4 last year. For the full year, EBIT declined by 1% to SEK 2.4 billion. We continue to see a positive development in net financials supported by reduced interest margins and lower absolute debt levels. The lower funding costs, combined with a continued reduction in the effective tax rate, helped lift adjusted net profit by 2% in the quarter and by, all in all, 15% for the full year. You will find the reported income statement as an appendix to this presentation and, of course, in our financial report. Just noting that items affecting comparability, which is the difference between this one and the reported P&L were in total minus SEK 10 million in Q4 and minus SEK 109 million for the full year '25. Let's turn to our financial KPIs shown here from Q4 '23 onwards. Our adjusted rolling 12 months EBITA margin remains stable at 9.4%, broadly unchanged from last year but below our target, which is more than 10%. Our efforts to reduce debt, our lower funding costs, our increased tax efficiency and buyback of minority shares in our subsidiaries have all in combination resulted in 7 consecutive quarters of steadily improving adjusted earnings per share measured on a rolling 12 months basis. Our adjusted EPS now stands at SEK 0.70 per share. The return on working capital has remained above 60% for the past 5 quarters, reaching 62.2% in Q4. Our adjusted return on equity and return on capital employed are still not at the levels we ultimately want them to be; however, both metrics are trending in the right direction, we believe, especially return on equity, and our ambition is to continue improving these metrics over time. Cash conversion remained solid at 74% on a rolling 12-month basis, which is above our long-term target of more than 70%. In the isolated fourth quarter, cash conversion was more than 100%, signaling strong underlying cash generation despite lower working capital released this year compared with previous periods. The normalization from the above 100% conversion back to the 70% to 80% range is something that we have expected and we've mentioned in many previous earnings calls. Finally, our leverage ratio of 2.3x is well within our target range of 2x to 3x and has trended down. This reflects the reduction in interest-bearing debt, thanks to strong cash generation and it provides us with strategic flexibility as we are resuming acquisition activity. So all taken together, this set of KPIs, we believe, shows that we are -- our financial foundation is strong, we maintain margins, improving returns, healthy cash generation and a solid balance sheet. Although some KPIs are below our own targets, we are, all in all, well positioned for 2026. Let's now turn to the sales bridge here. On this page, we break down the contribution to sales from organic growth, structural changes and currency effects for both the fourth quarter and the full year. Organic sales growth for the group was strong in the quarter at plus 5% and plus 2% for the full year, as Christer highlighted earlier. M&A, that's the net of acquisitions and divestments, had a neutral impact on sales growth in Q4, but a negative effect of 3% for the full year sales development. Currency continued to be a headwind also on sales, reducing sales by 3% in the fourth quarter and by 2% for the full year. Overall, we are, of course, pleased to see the contribution from both organic and acquired growth during the year and particularly in the fourth quarter. And then let's move to the corresponding EBITA bridge. Overall, EBITA declined by 4% in the quarter and 3% year-to-date. And I'll highlight 3 main key drivers behind this development, positive and negative. First, the impact of divestments and acquisitions combined with lower group costs added approximately 3% to EBITA in the quarter and 4% year-to-date. Second, currency translation effects continued to be a headwind. FX translation reduced EBITA by 2% in both Q4 and the full year. These are effects from converting earnings in other currencies into Swedish krona. And then finally, on the negative side, organic EBITA growth was down 5% in Q4 and year-to-date. But it's worth highlighting that of this 5% decline, transactional currency effects related to balance sheet revaluation, primarily within our Industry segment, account for roughly 70, that's 7-0, percent of the negative organic impact in Q4 and about 40, 4-0, percent of the full year organic decline. So in other words, currency effects had a significant negative impact on our top line and an even greater negative impact on EBITA. Let's move to the cash flow statement for the fourth quarter and the full year, starting with taxes. Our continued work on the tax side reduced paid income tax by 41% or by SEK 269 million in 2025, which we're, of course, very happy with. Next, change in net working capital contributed plus SEK 232 million in the quarter, which is in line with our expectations, and this was driven by lower levels of inventory and accounts receivable in the quarter. Cash flow from operating activities reached SEK 1.2 billion in the fourth quarter and SEK 2.5 billion for the full year and this is also in line with expectations, given that we've anticipated a normalization of working capital in combination with lower -- the positive effects from lower interest costs and paid tax. Turning to investments. Of the SEK 137 million in net investments in noncurrent assets in Q4, CapEx amounted to SEK 171 million. This corresponds to a CapEx to sales ratio of 2%, typically a bit higher in Q4; for reference, Q4 last year was 2.4%. Acquisitions and divestments totaled SEK 173 million in the quarter and SEK 759 million for the full year. These amounts include acquisitions of minority shares in existing subsidiaries and some earn-out payments. Cash flow from financing activities, including leasing payments, was SEK 640 million in the quarter and SEK 1.7 billion for the full year. Putting all of this together, net cash flow for the quarter was SEK 201 million and for the full year, minus SEK 508 million. Our cash balance at the end of December was SEK 1.3 billion and total available liquidity was an ample SEK 4.5 billion, including cash and unutilized credit facilities. And now let's move to a quick glance at the condensed balance sheet here. Total balance sheet amounts to SEK 41.5 billion compared to SEK 43.2 billion a year ago. Over the past 12 months, our total interest-bearing debt has decreased by roughly SEK 800 million, and our net interest-bearing debt is down by SEK 180 million, supported by the strong cash flows we just walked through. During the quarter alone, net interest-bearing debt was reduced by SEK 675 million. I would also like to highlight that our equity ratio has continued to improve, now at 50% compared to 48% a year ago. And then finally, a quick glance at the debt distribution here. Over the past years, we have worked through our entire debt portfolio, both bank loans and bonds, with the aim of reducing refinancing risk by distributing and extending our maturities and of course, with the aim of reducing also our funding costs. During the autumn, we refinanced our last shorter-dated bond by replacing it with a SEK 1 billion note with maturity in 2030 at a margin of 265 basis points. And with this refinancing now completed, we have no maturities until the second half of 2027, as illustrated here on this slide. You can also see here that our margins have been reduced with every new bond issued during '24 and '25. And I'd also like to add that both the larger term loan and the shorter or the smaller revolving credit facility do include extension options, which would further strengthen our flexibility, of course. And with that, I hand the word back to you, Christer.

Thank you, Lena. Before moving into the key summary, I would like to briefly highlight the 2 management updates. First, Jesper Kronstrand has been appointed Head of Business Area Services, as I mentioned before. And Jesper most recently served as the CEO of SoVent Group, where he led the strong profitable growth, combining organic development with acquisitions. Since 2018, SoVent sales have grown from about SEK 130 million to SEK 600 million. Jesper brings deep operational experience and a strong understanding of the centralized service businesses. SoVent has about 40 subsidiaries and can be viewed as a mini Storskogen in some ways. And we are very pleased to have him step into this new role -- or this role. Second, Chris Pullen has been appointed the Head of Storskogen U.K. on a permanent basis. Chris joined Storskogen in 2022 and brings extensive leadership experience from CEO roles across multiple U.K.-based organizations. We are very pleased that Chris has agreed to take on this role permanently providing stability, strong operational leadership and continued M&A expertise, as we develop the U.K. operations further. And as we close the fourth quarter of '25, here are the key takeaways: One, we delivered organic sales growth and see positive signs of an improving business cycle heading into 2026. Acquisitions resumed as the second half of 2025 and Storskogen enters '26 with a solid position of continued value creation. Thank you for your attention. And with that, we are happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea.

It's Carl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on Services. I, of course, acknowledge the tough comps you had last year. However, sequential deceleration versus Q3, 10 basis points, makes me a little bit puzzled, especially, I guess, since Q4 from a product perspective should be favorable. So could you help me understand a bit of that dynamic? And you also guided for a bit of a colder winter impacting some subsegments entering Q1, so should we look at the same kind of year-over-year margin drop in Q1 as we saw during Q4?

Looking at Q4 for Services, it is -- the sentiment for the construction part has been pretty much the same as we have seen in Q2 and Q3. So we have gone into that in Q4 with pretty much the same level as this year has been. And as we said, Q4 last year, we absolutely saw an uptick in margins and we also saw that the sentiment was going in the right direction. However, that changed, as you know, in kind of with all the turmoil in -- after kind of in Q1 and with the trade effects in April of last year. So Q4 has been in line with Q3 for Services.

Okay. And could you also help a little bit on Q1, how you look at the cold winter, as you guided for how -- what of an impact would that have? And also if you could give some flavor on the comparison in Q1?

But as I said, I think Q4 of 2024 and Q1 of 2025, we had -- we saw margin expansions in Services. And I would guess, and it's super hard to say now we have only had 1 month, and January, as you know, is a small month starting off the year. But I would guess that we will see pretty much the same situation for our Services business as we have seen in Q3 and Q4.

Okay. That is very clear. In Trade, you mentioned some kind of pre-buy in Q4, at least orders were taken in Q4 instead of Q1. Do you know what is behind that? And also if you could sort of give some magnitude on it...

Yes, I would -- guesstimate is that it's like SEK 10 million to SEK 20 million in sales. And there has been companies putting orders ahead of us increasing prices, but I would -- my guesstimate is around that SEK 10 million to SEK 20 million of sales.

That's very clear. And what is the price increase that you expect in Q1? And do you also expect to fully materialize the price increases given that your procurement costs are down due to the cheaper dollar?

we will continue to kind of -- I would say that 2026 and 2025 has been a more normalized -- if you look at an overall level of our companies, it's a more normalized way of a couple of percentage portion of price increases yearly that will affect kind of coming in -- usually in February -- January, February or March for different kinds of companies, but I would -- it is a more normalized level kind of prior -- the same level as prior to the inflation increase in '21-'22.

Okay. That is also very clear. In the report, you talked about the financial targets, right, 15%, '25 to '27 earnings growth. With what you see in Q1 and I guess what you see in orders in the Industry, could you help with the building blocks a little bit from -- I mean, obviously, you have delevered balance sheet, your M&A pipeline and organic recovery and so on, especially for perhaps '26?

Yes. I mean looking when we set that target, as I said, in Q4 of '24, we absolutely, as I guess, most of the company saw an uptick in 2025, which didn't materialize. So, of course, that's a disappointment for us of not doing the sales target as we wanted to come in. But of course, for us, we have had the ambition to continue to take on that target, and that comes from acquisitions and of course, an uptick in organic growth. And if we see what people are viewing now that kind of the uptick in the economy will come as further we go in the year, that would help us, of course, in both Trade and Industry. And of course, if we see -- also see an uptick in the construction sentiment that would also help our Services part.

And in '26, do you see a greater contribution from M&A or organic or do you see 50-50, in general?

But I would see a greater impact from acquisitions compared to 2025.

The next question comes from Dan Heimer from SEB.

A couple of questions from my side. Maybe starting a little bit on 5% organic growth in the quarter. My impression was in Q3 that you sound a bit optimistic on demand there, primarily in Sweden. Meanwhile, you have some challenges now in Services this quarter, as you spoke about, and I guess, that mainly is a Swedish business. So are you still as positive on demand now in general in Sweden going into next year or have you changed your thinking there in any ways?

I think I'm optimistic. Further the year will go, I think we will see an uptick in demand, especially if we see that they materialize what kind of the growth expectation for Swedish economy. I don't have any other view than most of the banks, and that will materialize during the year. So in 2026, I'm absolutely more optimistic for an uptick.

Yes, makes sense. And a follow-up question on Trade. The continued strength of the SEK. Could you remind me a little bit of the lag between when you see the full impact? Is it like 1 or 2 quarters from when the SEK moves, so to say, could you say that...

Yes. I would say, 2 to 4 quarters. It's a little bit -- because you have -- first of all, you have a hedge effect that companies a lot of the Swedish trading they hedge, so they -- at least half of what they're selling is hedged. So there, you have kind of -- and then you also have -- you have to sell out the products from inventory levels, so you also have an effect of that. But you should see -- and I think we've seen some of the effects already in Q4, but you should anticipate that, that's kind of the strength of the dollar, if this level is here, we will see an impact further the year goes.

Also bear in mind that all of the purchases are, of course, not in dollars. We still have a big exposure to the euro as well, I think even more purchases in euro rather than a year or 2 years ago.

Yes. So that's one effect. And also, of course, having some -- we also have an effect of the weak Norwegian kroner when we take in the -- because we have some large trading companies in Norway. So we had some effects going both ways, even for Trade. But both -- when SEK strengthened from -- to euro and dollar, that will have a positive effect on a net level for Trade. But you will see -- the further on we go, I think we see a more positive side.

Yes. Makes sense. And maybe moving on to M&A and maybe starting with divestments. Perhaps you did one in the quarter as part of the portfolio review, a smaller one, but still, would you say you're basically done now? Or could there be some fine-tuning of the portfolio? Or how should we think about the divestment part into 2026?

I mean we did a large divestment of '24. And then, I mean, we've done -- outside of that, we did 2 small divestments in '24 and then the big ones, and we've done 1 divestment of 2025. We will continue to always kind of look at our portfolio and optimize that. But I mean, as I said, we took care of the big things in '24, but we will continue to work on always looking at the strategic level of our portfolio.

Perfect. Maybe a final on how do you view the M&A pipeline and how it's building? It's not been that many quarters where you've been back with the acquisition activity. But how is it building? Do you see a ramp-up now in pipeline versus maybe 1 or 2 quarters ago?

Yes. I mean I think I mentioned that. I mean we started off doing in Q3. And of course, haven't not done many acquisitions in several years, so it has been a build up. But it's getting stronger and stronger, and we have a lot of interesting dialogues with companies. So that is going in the right direction for sure. But always with M&A, it's super hard to say exactly when you close the deal. It's so many things that affect that, as you know.

Yes, I fully understand, but it sounds like the pipeline is at least building, as you expect.

Yes.

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from Johan Dahl from Danske Bank.

Just a question on those transaction FX effects you talked about in the quarter. What does that represent, more specifically? If it's just a sort of a balance sheet on the end of day sort of valuation of receivables, et cetera? And do you anticipate that effect to be similar in Q1 given where FX is right now? And also, if you could update us on minority repurchases here in 2026 where that may end up?

Sure. The transaction effect is, as you say, it's a revaluation of balance sheet items, not only on the balance day, but on the average during the quarter. And it will -- well, we don't know where the currency is heading in Q4 -- in Q1 now, but speaking from January when the corona is continuing to strengthen, there would -- if that trend continues, there would likely also be a negative effect in the first quarter, but it's -- again, we've only seen 1 month out of the 3 so far, if that helps. And then the second question was around the minority liability, which is approximately a little bit short of SEK 1.5 billion on the balance sheet right now. Quite a large part of that is short term, which means that they may be repurchased by us this year. I think you can assume that approximately half of that will actually be bought back during 2026 by us during this year. The majority of that will likely happen in Q3; some of it in Q2 as well; a smaller part, if any, in the first quarter. And then there is a small earnout liability of SEK 75 million on the balance sheet, but that's quite small. But yes, we will spend some money on buying back minority shares this year as well. Again, reminding you that this will -- I mean, increasing our share of the subsidiaries does help our EPS growth as well because the EPS is only measured on the profit that belongs to the parent company shareholders.

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thank you for the questions, and thank you for listening into this call. I hope that you all have a great day and a great week. Thanks a lot for being with us and looking forward to see you and talk to you in the quarter. Bye-bye.