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

Welcome to the Storskogen Q2 presentation for 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christer Hansson; and CFO, Lena Glader. Please go ahead.

Welcome and thank you for joining us for the presentation of Storskogen's interim report for the second quarter of 2026. I'm Christer Hansson, CEO; and with me today is Lena Glader, our CFO. When we spoke after first quarter, my message was that this year would bring an increased focus on growth in its broadest sense, organic and acquired. The second quarter has moved us in that direction, which I'm pleased with. We delivered positive organic development, completed further acquisitions and continue to build on a stable operational platform. Growth was also the theme when we gathered more than 100 of our group's business unit CEOs in Stockholm at the end of May for our Global CEO days. Over 2 days, we discussed how growth is created in the businesses and how we, as an owner, support our CEOs in succeeding, including a half day on AI where the CEOs did practical solutions. The engagement was strong throughout, which says something about the ambition that exists across the group. I will shortly go through the quarter in more detail, including how our capacity for acquisition-driven growth develops going into the second half of the year and beyond. But before that, let's take a brief look at Storskogen. Storskogen is a diversified international business group with sales of approximately SEK 33 billion over the last year and adjusted EBITA of about SEK 3.1 billion spread across our 3 business areas: Services, Trade and Industry. At the end of Q2, the group consisted of 114 business units with average annual sales of around SEK 290 million. Overall, I'm especially pleased with the development for Industry, an underlying positive trend can be seen in Trade as we move into the second half of the year and we are seeing improvements in Services. Johan Ekstrom has taken over as an Interim Head of Services and I'm confident in the team while we are moving towards a permanent solution. So let's turn to the highlights for the quarter. The second quarter delivered growth in both sales and EBITA driven by organic development in the quarter. This is a shift we are working towards and it's encouraging to see it come through in numbers. Year-to-date, organic net sales growth stands at 4% and we are working hard to get the negative adjusted EBITA number towards positive territory. If we take a closer look at the margin, the comparison period includes one-off effect and adjusted for that, the margin is unchanged year-over-year. Cash flow came in at SEK 465 million and somewhat lower than a year ago. This reflects a strong finish to the quarter where higher sales in June meant more outstanding receivables at the end of the period. We expect this to support cash flow during the second half of the year, similar to the pattern we saw last year. We completed 4 acquisitions in the quarter with a combined annual sales of SEK 214 million, in line with the gradual return to acquired growth that we have communicated. Operational excellence and sales growth remain key priorities. The market environment is still mixed and disciplined execution in the businesses continues to be the foundation for both organic performances and our increased M&A activity. Next let's take a closer look at our cash flow performance, which continues to be a key strength. As mentioned, cash flow in the quarter came in somewhat below last year due to a strong finish to the quarter, particularly in Industry. Higher sales in June meant that receivables increased at the end of the period tying up some working capital, but with an expected reversal during H2. On the right side of the slide, you can see that the group continues to be stable with cash flow on a rolling 12-month basis at around SEK 2.5 billion. It has come down somewhat. Growth ties up capital and with cash conversion moving down towards 70%, we are seeing the effect of the group delivering sales growth. The persistent cash flow achieved over the past years reflect continued disciplined operational execution across the group. That discipline remains fundamental to our business model and to our capital allocation going forward. Next we look closer to the seasonal variation for the sales and EBITA margin. The second quarter came in stronger, in line with our historical seasonal pattern. As just mentioned, comparing with last year, Q2 in 2025 including a positive one-off effect. Adjusted for that, the margin is unchanged year-over-year. Quarterly performance naturally fluctuates by diversification across industry, geographies and end market provide relative stability over time as you can see on the right side of the slide. That said, the trend for rolling 12 months margin is slightly negative and we are not satisfied with that. I continue to believe, however, that our target of at least 10% is reasonable especially if the economic environment improves. We are working hard to turn the trend and the organic development this quarter is a step in that direction. Let me now turn to the organic sales growth. Organic sales growth is picking up, which has been our focus for the past years through everything that we have done on pricing, customer offerings and operational improvements in the businesses. Seeing this work come through in numbers is a good start. Keeping and taking market shares drives profits over time. A business that defends and grows its position in the market has pricing power, relevance with customers and room to invest. So the logic going forward is straightforward; grow the top line organically, we strengthen the margin and together those 2 grow EBITA. Next, let's take a closer look at the margin trend across the group. The chart to the right shows industry has turned its trend in the past quarter in a market that's been challenging, particularly outside of Sweden. The order book is solid and this is expected to support the second half of the year. Trade is currently fairly stable, but the trend has moved in the right direction over the past 2 years and the economic environment is improving. Services level has leveled out and we are hoping for a better economic environment, particularly in construction, but our main focus is operational improvements company by company. And as we move into the second half of the year, we are moving in the right direction, which gives us confidence in reaching our targets for the long term. For a closer look at the business area, we will start with a more detailed look at Services. Services developed well compared to last year with an increase in both sales and EBITA. Sales were supported by acquisitions and organic growth alike. Profitability continued to be affected by subdued underlying market conditions, particularly in the business units exposed to the construction sector, but with early signs of improving sentiment. Some of the business units in markets with structurally lower margins are recording improved sales compared to last year, impacted the year-over-year margin development. Business services reported growth in both sales and EBITA, including digital services and logistics. In the quarter, 1 platform acquisition was completed and 2 add-ons. More on that later. In terms of visibility for the next quarter, Q3 is a seasonally soft quarter; but for the second half of the year, the outlook is cautiously optimistic. Now let's turn into Trade. Trade had a seasonally stronger quarter with net sales of SEK 2.3 billion, 1% lower than a year ago, but with organic sales growth of 2% year-to-date. Most business units in consumer products developed well compared to last year. This was offset by business units in health and beauty who were affected by a weaker demand from several Scandinavian customers. Professional products reported a quarter with sales growth and improved profitability. In sum, the underlying trend, as mentioned before, remains positive for most segments. One acquisition was completed in August with sales of SEK 126 million. Q3 is typically a softer quarter than the second. Demand with professional products is expected to remain solid and the positive signals from the consumer side is persisting. Next let's turn into Industry. Net sales in the Industry increased by 6% to close to SEK 4 billion for the quarter. This was the result of sales growth across all verticals with margin improvements in Industrial Technologies and automation. Organic sales growth was 5% at the half year mark partly driven by growth investment made in the past few years in addition to recovery in non-Nordic markets. We also saw organic EBITA growth in the quarter now standing at 7% year-to-date. To give one example of those growth investments. J&D Pierce, our structural steel business in Scotland, has invested in a huge coating facility outside Glasgow. This investment was made through a period of weak demand and has now positioned the business in a strategically strong position to capture volumes as the market recovers. Another example is L&S that has also made sizable investment. Both of these are examples of successful capital allocation efforts that are achieving solid growth through CapEx investments. One acquisition was completed with annual sales of SEK 99 million and I will get back on that shortly. In sum, I think this was a fantastic quarter for industry with improvements on all key metrics. And as we head into Q3, the order books look strong. Let me walk you through the acquisitions completed during this half year and just at the end of the quarter. In the past few months, we have added 3 platform acquisitions and 3 add-ons. They are all connected to Storskogen's investment themes that you see on the left side of the slide. First, Darlington EMS in the U.K. is a specialist manufacturer of electronic parts and components serving customers across sectors exposed to several of our themes, including automation, infrastructure and health and well being. Darlington has a strong position in a niche with clear barriers to entry. The businesses join our automation vertical in Industry and further strengthens our U.K. presence. Second, Safi in Singapore is a provider of fire safety solution with more than 4 years of history, long customer relationships and a recurring services revenue base in a sector where regulatory requirements keep increasing. Safi fits our infrastructure theme and the business model is familiar to those of you who know SoVent Group while one of our largest business units in Services, which operates in a similar technical services sector and has developed strong with us. I should add that SoVent also completed 2 add-ons acquisitions during the quarter. In Asia, we now have 900 employees via platforms of subsidiaries headquarter and outsourced. And third, Verdant in Norway is a distributor of premium professional hair care brands. Verdant sits in our health and well-being theme and complements our existing professional hair care business in the Nordics where we see a clear potential for collaboration and synergies. In sum, 3 platform acquisitions in 3 different geographies, all within our investment themes in addition to being margin accretive and done at good valuations. Next up I want to provide some further insight into Storskogen capacity to further allocate capital towards acquisitions. Those of you who joined us last quarter will recognize this slide. It is for illustrative purpose only and we are showing it again because the message is worth repeating. The commitments we carried with us from the acquisitions of 2021 and 2022 are approaching their end and that allows us to look forward with a more focused strategy to achieve growth through capital allocation. I want to underscore that this does not include additional debt capacity from profit growth, which could further support our leverage headroom. The 2 bars on the left show how we have allocated our free cash flow after CapEx and leasing in 2024 and 2025. As you can see, debt reduction in light blue represented the largest share of cash deployment in both years. That work is now largely behind us. For 2026, debt reduction is expected to be close to 0 and as a result, the capacity for M&A improved substantially already this year and you can see that in the size of the dark green portion of the 2026 bar. New on this slide is the bar for 2027. Cash directed towards minority buyouts and earn-outs decreases significantly next year towards a more normalized run rate going forward. This frees up even more capital for acquisition. Taken together, the picture is clear. Step by step a larger share of our cash flow becomes available for acquired growth and we intend to deploy it in a structured way within our investment teams. With that, I will hand over to Lena for a more detailed financial review.

Thank you, Christer, and good morning, everyone. Yes. So let me take you through the financials for the second quarter. Figures on this page are adjusted for items affecting comparability and I'll come back to that in a while. The reported income statement is of course in the appendix to this presentation and in the report that we published this morning. Net sales for the quarter were SEK 8.86 billion, up 5% on Q2 last year and sales growth was organically driven in this quarter. And I'll walk you through that bridge on the next page. Turning to adjusted EBITDA, it rose 2% to SEK 1.13 billion. After depreciation of SEK 263 million, which is broadly unchanged year-on-year, our adjusted EBITA was SEK 864 million also up 2% year-on-year. And this corresponds to an adjusted EBITA margin of 9.7% compared with 10% in the second quarter last year. And let me pause here because it matters for the comparison and Christer touched on it just recently also. So the second quarter of last year included a positive effect from reversal of costs related to our long-term share-based incentive program and this actually affects comparison by SEK 22 million. And adjusting for this, the margin was essentially unchanged year-on-year, which is what Christer also talked about. So after amortization of SEK 171 million, adjusted operating profit or EBIT was SEK 693 million, up 3% year-on-year. Our net financial items continued to improve notably here to a negative SEK 146 million from SEK 216 million in Q2 last year. So this is an improvement of 33%. And this is the continued payoff from 2 years of refinancing and debt reduction coming through as lower interest margins on an absolute lower or lower absolute debt level and also around SEK 40 million of the improvement is explained by currency items in the previous year. So profit before tax was consequently up 20% and net profit after tax up by 18% to SEK 413 million. And finally, for completeness here, items affecting comparability, which are excluded on this page, amounted to minus SEK 33 million on the net profit level in the second quarter and this compares to last year's Q2, which carried minus SEK 89 million related to the bond refinancing that we did last year mainly. And then turning to the financial KPIs at the bottom of this page. Adjusted earnings per share came in at SEK 0.23 so that's up 23% year-on-year and for the last 12 months period, it came in at SEK 0.74. EPS increased more than our net profit and this is explained by the buyback of shares in the parent company that we did in Q4 as well as buyback of minority shares in subsidiaries. Our adjusted return on equity improved to 6.6% from 6% a year ago and our adjusted return on capital employed was 10% so that's down from 10.4% a year ago. And as we've said before, our ambition is to show steady improvement in both of these measures over time. Now let's turn to the sales and EBITA bridges where we break down what actually drove the year-on-year change in the quarter. Starting with sales. So we began at SEK 8.45 billion in Q2 last year. Organic growth added 5%, acquisitions added 2% and currency translation was broadly neutral in this quarter. Now this is worth noting because currency has been a meaningful headwind in the recent quarters. Divestments then reduced sales by 2% and that brings sales to SEK 8.86 billion for the quarter, which is an increase of 5%. And then moving to the EBITA bridge on the right here. We started at SEK 843 million a year ago and acquisitions and divestments together contributed a net 3%. This is because we have divested companies that were loss-making. Now this of course improves current year's EBITA. Organic growth added 2%. This is helped by transactional currency effects. We're translating balance sheet items and this contributed positively in this quarter again from a period of negative contribution in recent quarters. Currency translation was again close to neutral. And group operations reduced EBITA by 3% and this is essentially the one-off I mentioned previously related to the incentive program. And this leaves us at SEK 864 million of adjusted EBITA for the quarter, up 2% year-on-year. And on the next page, we show the same story basically expressed in margin terms and divided per business area showing how we moved from an adjusted EBITA margin of 10% in the second quarter last year to 9.7% this quarter, which is a net change of minus 0.3 percentage points. Industry contributed positively adding 0.3 percentage points to the margin and this reflects margin improvements, particularly in industrial technology and automation. Trade took off 0.1 percentage points and, as Christer described, the headwinds in the Nordic health and beauty segment continue to weigh on parts of consumer products while professional products actually improved their margins. Services took off 0.2 percentage points and this is driven by the business units -- mainly within the business units within infrastructure services that are exposed to the construction sector where demand remains weak. And finally, again group operations accounted for 0.3 percentage points of the decline and this is again explained by this reversal of the cost-off item in the previous year. So that said, we are not satisfied with a flat margin excluding this central item. Our target is 10% and that remains both our ambition and improving it is where the operational work is concentrated. And let's move over to the cash flow statement for the second quarter on the next page here. So cash flow from operating activities was SEK 465 million compared with SEK 527 million a year ago so that's down 12%. On a rolling 12-month basis, we generated SEK 2.46 billion, which is around the same rolling 12-month level of SEK 2.5 billion that we had last year. But looking at the year-on-year change in Q2, this is worth explaining because it's mainly a timing effect rather than a deterioration. So profit before tax was up 41% to SEK 514 million. Noncash items contributed SEK 467 million and paid tax was minus SEK 138 million, that's slightly lower than last year. But the swing factor here is the working capital. which tied up SEK 378 million in the quarter against SEK 260 million a year ago and the biggest explanation here is higher operating receivables following a very strong end to the quarter especially in Industry. So we had a good sales month in June, but we had not yet been paid for it by the quarter end and this is the explanation. And we expect, as Christer mentioned, also to see a reversal during the second half of the year here in line with typical seasonality. Worth mentioning is that inventory buildup was very low in the quarter along the same lines as last year. So it's mainly these operating receivables that explain this change. Turning to investments. Net investment in noncurrent assets were SEK 218 million, up from SEK 110 million, SEK 208 million of this is CapEx and this is higher than last year on the back of some growth investments again mainly in industry. Acquisitions and divestments accounted for SEK 181 million. This is the cash effect essentially in line with last year and this covers acquisitions completed in the quarter as well as buybacks of minority shares. And together, cash flow from investing activities was minus SEK 399 million. And turning to financing activities, including leasing payments, the cash flow here was positive SEK 150 million. So adding it all up, net cash flow for the period was positive SEK 216. We ended June with a cash balance of SEK 1.4 billion and a total available liquidity of SEK 4.3 billion. This includes cash and unutilized credit facilities and that gives us the flexibility to keep executing on our strategic agenda of acquisitions that Christer talked about also. Cash conversion in the isolated quarter was 48% compared with 66% a year ago for the working capital reasons I just described and also the somewhat higher CapEx, which should fuel our growth going forward especially in Industry here. But however, because this measure is seasonal by nature, we prefer to look at it over a rolling 12-month period, which is what we show on the next page here. So here we show the operating cash flow over a 12-month period defined as EBITDA less change in net working capital and less CapEx. And the cash conversion is this metric over EBITDA basically. So how much of the profit we generate actually turns into cash. And on the rolling 12 months, we ended the second quarter at SEK 3 billion having tracked between roughly SEK 3 billion and SEK 4 billion since 2024. Our group target is a cash conversion of at least 70% over a rolling 12-month period shown here by the dotted line. So over the last 12 months, our adjusted cash conversion was 74% compared with 80% a year ago and 79% at the end of Q1. So we remain above the target, but the trend has moved towards a more normalized level as expected given that we are back on a more growth-driven agenda compared to a few years back. Our focus nevertheless remains firmly on growing profit while maintaining working capital discipline obviously. And then very briefly on the next page about our balance sheet, some comments. Total assets amounted to SEK 43.5 billion at the end of June compared to SEK 42.3 billion a year ago so that's a 3% year-on-year increase. And the growth sits mainly in current assets, which rose 8% to SEK 14.4 billion. This also again reflects the operating receivables that I described a moment ago while noncurrent assets were mainly unchanged. And there is one shift, however, in the balance sheet worth mentioning and that's interest-bearing current liabilities which fell while interest-bearing noncurrent liabilities rose by approximately the same amount. And in other words, we have moved debt from short-term to long-term maturities, which lengthens our maturity profile and reduces financing risk while at the same time, noninterest-bearing current liabilities rose and the equivalent noncurrent item fell. And this item includes these minority option liabilities that have moved closer to maturity. And as Christer illustrated before, we will be reducing a large part of the commitments coming due now within the coming 12 months. And during the second half, we expect this amount to be somewhere around SEK 800 million to SEK 900 million possibly during the second half of the year in 2026 and after that, lower. And then turning to the KPIs, again leverage ratio, interest-bearing net debt over adjusted RTM EBITDA was 2.4x and I'll come back to that on the next page. So finally, we show the interest-bearing net debt and leverage ratio here over the past 9 quarters. The interest-bearing net debt at the end of the quarter stood at just under SEK 9.9 billion, which is down from SEK 10.2 billion a year ago, but up from SEK 9.5 billion at the end of Q1. The sequential increase reflects acquisitions, minority option buybacks and dividend paid. Our leverage ratio was 2.4x, as mentioned, which is unchanged from the same quarter last year and marginally up from 2.3x at the end of March. And as you see, we've been at or below 2.4x since the end of 2024 and I would repeat that our ambition is to keep leverage below 2.5x and this is unchanged. So a stable balance sheet at this level of leverage combined with strong cash generation and the reduction of our minority commitment is what allows us to step up the pace of acquisitions and to do so with the same discipline on margin and valuation that we have applied since we restarted our M&A activities a year ago. And with that, I will hand over to you, Christer, for key takeaways.

Thank you, Lena. So let me summarize where we stand. The second quarter delivered organic growth in both sales and EBITA in a seasonally stronger quarter. An encouraging step even if there is more work to do. Industry performed very well in the quarter and the underlying market trend in Trade is moving in the right direction. I'm also pleased that Services performed much better in the quarter. Operational excellence remain our key focus: driving organic growth, improving profitability and maintaining strong discipline and cost control. That focus is unchanged. The same discipline generates our cash flow. And as I showed earlier, a growing share of it is now available for acquisition with debt reduction largely behind us and capital tied to minorities and earn-outs decreasing substantially during this year. So we entered the second half of 2026 cautiously optimistic with a strong acquisition pipeline across our investment themes, an increased financial flexibility. We see good opportunities to continue adding acquired growth and to increase its contribution in the group's total growth over time. Thank you for listening. And with that, we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Anton Ingves from Nordea.

So if we start off in Trade here, would you say here that the sort of softness is entirely attributed to the health and beauty segment in the consumer segment here?

Correct.

And what are you sort of seeing here heading into H2 and sort of your visibility on the sort of development in the coming quarters here?

I hope that we are seeing a shift in the trend from the customers moving from kind of taking down inventory towards growth again. So that is what we are seeing -- hope that we are seeing. In a broader sense, most of the companies outside of the health and beauty sector in Trade are doing well. So it is in that sector that we have seen a slowness in the quarter.

Okay. And did you see sort of any change in momentum sort of within the quarter, sort of a pickup or activity towards the end of the quarter?

It was better in the end than in the beginning.

Okay. That's very clear. And sort of if we move on to Service and the margin compression here, how much would you say are attributed to the mix effect that you mentioned in the report versus the sort of higher material cost as well as the price pressure due to competition?

It is both. Guesstimate is 50-50.

And sort of on looking ahead here in Service on the margin side, how much do you think you can improve just from sort of operational improvements? And how much are you sort of relying on a pickup in demand especially within the construction sector here?

I do think that I mean we're seeing a pickup. For the first time in a long time, we're seeing sales growth in the quarter and that's a good start. Of course it will help a lot if the construction side come out and starts growing again and that would help a lot. But I mean we are continuing to work with operational questions in all companies. So it's a company-by-company question. So I think that we could improve margin over time.

Okay. Understood. And sort of on the sort of improvements you see, would you say that this is sort of incrementally more positive here in Q2 compared to the outlook in Q1?

I think we are seeing what we expected to see that we were hoping for a stronger Q2 and that's what they came in on. So I think it's fairly in line with what we expected.

Okay. Perfect. And in terms of M&A, obviously 2 platforms here in Q2 and 1 in July as well. All of these made outside of Sweden. And as you mentioned here during the presentation as well, you aim to sort of pick up the M&A pace further here going forward. In terms of geographies, where do you see the most potential here for the coming years?

I mean we have -- I think we've been clear about this message since our presentation in '24 on the Capital Markets Day that we want to improve or grow our exposure towards businesses outside of Sweden because it's been almost 50%. So we will continue to grow in the U.K., in DACH especially and also some acquisitions in Asia. So I mean we have been seeing a lot of good potential in the U.K. But as you see now, we have been doing 3 acquisitions in 3 different geographies. And I think that we have a broad market where we are looking at good opportunities. So I think that we will continue to do that working in the U.K. and in the DACH region.