W5 Solutions AB (publ) (W5) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, and welcome to today's presentation of W5 Solutions Q2 Results 2026. I'm joined here in the studio by our CEO, Evelina Hedskog, who will give you a brief presentation of W5 Solutions, followed by highlights and financial developments during the quarter. At then, we will conclude with a Q&A session. So please submit your questions at any time during the presentation, and we will answer them one by one. With that, the floor is yours, Evelina.

Thank you, Hannah. So good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation. So I'll start a little bit, like Hannah said, with W5, who we are and what we do. And we are a Nordic defense company delivering mission-critical solutions that strengthens military operational capability. That's who we are and what we do. Right now, operations spread across the Nordics, additional sites in Finland since the last quarter. And we call Sweden, Norway and Finland, our home markets, whilst the export market is primarily focusing on Western Europe. Right now, around 270 employees in the group. And looking at the customer base, it's a mix between defense agencies and industry primes. And we are listed on Nasdaq First North since 2021. So again, one group, one W5, but offering multiple capabilities. And we do this through our 3 different business areas: integration, training and power. And in integration, what we have there is an offering of deployable defense infrastructure and systems integration. In training, we find advanced live fire training systems. And in power, we have reliable power solutions and simulator hardware. So that's the offering throughout the group. And to give a little bit more flavor to this, we can say that we have sort of 2 main business models in W5. The first one is project-based contracts that very often is related to customized solutions with smaller series. And then we have more of an off-the-shelf type of contract where we have standardized solutions and larger series. And within each of our 3 business areas, there's a mix between the project-based and the off-the-shelf business model. But on a general level, you can say that integration and power definitely have more of the project base, whilst in training, there's a majority of the off-the-shelf contracts. So that gives you a little bit more info around how we operate. Okay. So the financial targets that we have and that we're striving towards are the same as they've been for the last 2 years. And we say that by the end of next year, we want to have a net sales amounting up to SEK 1 billion and an EBIT margin of 10%. And the journey, how to get there is a combination of acquired and organic growth. And I think it's fair to say that today, the numbers that we will show, we can see that we are doing both. With regards to the EBIT margin, still have some way to go, but all in all, taking steps towards these 2 financial goals that we have. So some highlights, important events that happened during this last quarter then. But to kick off, I think the -- absolutely most important thing to talk about is the fact that we have closed the acquisition of KT Shelter. And what does this mean to us? Well, it means that we enhance our portfolio with deployable shelters for critical defense assets, primarily on the air side, but also more in general terms. It strengthens our footprint in Finland, as we saw on the map in the beginning of the presentation and this gives cross-selling opportunities for the entire group. And yes, the acquisition was closed on the 25th of May. So during June, we have KT Shelter numbers in the books, and they now belong in business area integration. So when we look at integration numbers today, it's KT Shelter numbers included there. So this closing was, of course, one of the absolute biggest events during the second quarter. We have also communicated a press release with this contract that we see in this slide. It's business area power, securing an order of SEK 46 million to the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration. And this contract is a bit different from what we would normally do in business area power. This is a contract for fixed installation -- fixed power installations in the training facility, and we are acting as prime with a subcontractor helping us to deliver this scope. And the scope is then for project management, system safety and then a complete 400-hertz power supply system for this training center. So a very exciting contract and something we'll see if we see more of in the future. Then last but not least, the third thing I want to highlight from the second quarter is the very important framework agreement that we have now signed with the Swedish Armed Forces. Residing in business area training, the scope for this framework agreement is focusing on service support and equipment for training, but also for simulation systems. So it is also partly connected to the power business area. The term of this agreement is initially 3 years, but with an additional 6 years that can be added. And when the Swedish customer estimates the value of the 9-year term, they say this is probably around SEK 700 million. But so far, it's a framework agreement. So far, it's what we sometimes call a hunting license. This is a framework that will help us in our sales process. This is a framework that will help the customer in their procurement and facilitate call-off orders from W5. So this is a vehicle -- contract vehicle that we hope to be using a lot now in the future. Okay. Moving on to numbers both for the quarter and year-to-date. So looking at the overall picture for the group, it's definitely a bit of a mixed bag this quarter. So if we start with the left column and the order intake, we can conclude that, yes, we have this SEK 146 million contract for business area power. But apart from that, there has been a lot of medium and small orders coming in. So the total order intake amounts to SEK 234 million in the period. And yes, the arrow is pointing down because last year, it was an exceptionally good order intake right before vacation. But we are -- I think we feel confident with the fact that SEK 234 million in order intake this quarter, it is a solid order intake, and we feel confident in the demand from the market. And this is also shown in the growing order backlog where we also have some contributions from KT Shelter. So looking at the order book, we are now up to SEK 865 million. Moving on to net sales then. The arrow is definitely pointing up. We have a growth compared to last year same period of 105%. And yes, acquired growth from KT Shelter, but it's actually 66% of this that is organic growth. So regardless of acquisitions, we are really showing that we can grow our production capacity this quarter. On the negative side, then the EBIT margin is not what it should be, and there are 2 main contributors to this. The first one is the fact that we have some transaction-related one-off costs that amounts to a little bit more than SEK 17 million in this quarter. So if we adjust the numbers with -- by that, we end up with an EBIT margin of minus 3%. That should then be compared to the minus 7% last year. So in that sense, we have a progress. That said, we are also struggling with the direct costs, direct raw material costs in the deliveries this quarter that are hampering the gross margin and also then giving a negative effect on the EBIT margin. So these are the 2 major contributors to the fact that the EBIT margin is not what it should be in quarter 2. Operating cash flow, something we are -- well, the entire working capital is something that we are keeping a close eye on now with the very intense growth that we find ourselves in. And [ all happy ] to report that we had a positive operating cash flow of SEK 41 million this quarter. Okay. Moving on, looking at the historical development. Every time we look at this slide, we talk about the seasonal variations. And I think it's fair to say that we see them this year as well. And again, remember that we also have transactions-related one-off costs in the -- reflecting in the negative EBIT margin here. But in terms of net sales, we see the same pattern as we normally do. Okay. A little bit more then about our 3 different business areas and the operating segments. Starting with order intake and order backlog. I said earlier that we had exceptionally good order intake this quarter last year, and we still think that we have a solid and stable order intake this year. But as you can see, none of the business areas have the same order intake in quarter 2 as they did in the corresponding period 2025. Even so, both integration and power have increased their order backlog, whilst training are not reaching the same numbers as last year. But then please keep in mind, order to delivery is a much shorter cycle in training. So we can see fluctuations over time to a larger extent here when it comes to order backlog. And again, the framework agreement signed with the Swedish Armed Forces before the summer, that is really a tool to work with now to -- in order to build backlog and order intake for training in the coming months. Moving on to net sales and EBIT per business area. So starting with integration. Here, we can see numbers then including KT Shelter. But for integration and also for training and power, these numbers include the corporate costs and also then the extra SEK 17.3 million that we see connected to the acquisition of KT Shelter. So numbers here are hampered across the line because of transaction costs. That said, let us look a little bit at the different aspects of what we see in front of us. So in integration, here we have, well, more than doubled net sales and the absolute majority contributor to that is KT Shelter. And if we look at the profitability, it's lower than last year, again, some transaction costs, but we do have a positive contribution from KT Shelter for the net profit. And then we have, again, the gross margin problem with 2 high direct costs that we see in integration. So there are some plus and some minuses that gives us this result in the quarter. So definitely lower gross margin than normal for business area integration, which is then reflected on the bottom line. Moving on to training. Here, we see a very healthy development in organic growth, but again, big downside in the profitability. And again, it's the direct costs that is hampering the result. And moving on to power. I think this is an amazing -- this is amazing proof of the fact that we can scale up production. We have more than 100% organic growth in power this quarter compared to last year. And even though we have some transaction costs that power absorbs, they are moving in the right direction when it comes to profitability. And we have seen this over the last quarters now that power is still not contributing to profitability, but they are moving in the right direction. So I think that's something to keep an eye on going forward. Okay. So we've now talked about the quarter 2, and this slide is really just summarizing year-to-date. The first quarter was, for those of you who remember, it was a net zero result. So I think the aspects of profitability within the business areas that we have talked about, it is more or less applicable to the entire first half of 2026. But again, looking at net sales for the group amounting to SEK 357 million, it's a big step up from last year same period. And looking at the EBIT then, we're now in minus SEK 24 million. And for the full half year, first half of 2026, we have SEK 18.5 million there related to transaction costs. So also in absolute numbers, we are doing better than last year if we adjust for the transaction costs. But again, we are not nearly close to the 10% EBIT that we are striving for. So more work needs to be done. So to summarize then, what are the key takeaways from this quarter. I'll just start with, I think that we can -- it's fair to say that we have a continued strong market demand and this is reflected both in the order intake and in the order backlog. We have a record-high net sales. We grew 105%. And remember that 66% of this is organic growth in the quarter. So that's quite amazing. The downside is that we have profitability challenges. We've seen it before, but we haven't really seen it before connected to the gross margin. So a lot of work needs to be put into this now to understand what we can do to make sure this is not a trend that is continuing in the future. So priorities, of course, cost control and efficiency improvements, mainly connected to gross margin and growing the way we do. Capital tie-up is a big enemy. And we are working very, very diligently on the working capital and making sure that we keep an eye on this. So we need to continue that focus. Again, it's been there during the spring. I think we see positive effects of it, but it needs to be very closely watched. And last but not least, getting KT Shelter fully integrated into the group. We're taking good steps already, but this fall will be all about having them fully integrated into the W5 group. So I think that summarizes our second quarter and year-to-date. Thank you. So I think, yes.

Yes. It's time for Q&A, the fun part. Well, I've looked into the chat, and we've got a couple of questions to go through. The first question is, like you said, this first quarter, shelters is included. It's the first quarter for us. How should we think about the business dynamics in terms of order backlog duration, lead times from order to delivery and working capital?

Yes. Even though it's quite substantial operations and net sales, they are -- I would say that they are leaning towards the off-the-shelf business model rather than the project-based, fairly quick turnaround from order to delivery. So again, even though it's large contracts, they have a tendency of being able to turn them around quite quickly. And that also means that the backlog that they are bringing into our backlog now is -- well, it's there, but it needs to grow over time.

So more like business area training.

Yes, a little bit. I would say, somewhere in between in the business model, yes.

Thank you very much. Next question, do you still expect to secure additional orders for delivery in 2026? Or is the order backlog for this year's deliveries largely complete?

It depends a little bit on what part of the portfolio that the customer is interested in, but there's definitely room to both win and deliver more business this year, and that is something that we will have full focus during the third quarter, of course. We definitely see there's opportunities to win even more business and being able to deliver in 2026.

Do you have the capacity to deliver SEK 1 billion in revenue considering current production facilities, workforce, supplier base and other operational resources looking at where we are now?

Yes. I mean if we talk only about getting sort of things shipped, I think we have really proven now in this last quarter that we have the ability to ramp up production and being able to do that in a good way. And will it be enough all the way up to the SEK 1 billion? Well it -- of course, we need to monitor this over time and so on. But I mean, 2027 is not that far away now. So of course, some adjustments must be made. But again, what we see now with this increased organic growth, again, then fully utilizing the workforce that we have, the facilities that we have and so on, I think that's a really good sign.

And then shifting focus back to -- as you presented earlier in the presentation, you talked about the lower gross profit margin. The question is, how should we think about the lower gross profit margin? What were the main drivers? Is it product mix, higher component prices, increased production costs or the mix of contracts? Could you elaborate a bit more?

I'd say all of the above. Yes. No, I mean this is, of course -- I mean, this is really serious because up until -- well, quite recently, at least, we've had a very stable gross margin. So this is kind of a new thing that fluctuates the way we have done over the last quarters. And yes, it is a mix of different things. We definitely see increased raw material prices, as I think well, more or less everyone does. And so that's part of it. And then there is some aspects connected to specific projects that are delivered in this quarter and so on. So it's a mix. And in one sense, it's good that it's really easy to zoom in on what we need to focus on in order to get the profitability in the future quarters. At the same time, of course, since there are so many aspects to it, there is also a lot of things that needs to be adjusted. So well, the focus is clear. We know what we need to do. And fortunately, for us, there is a strong market demand. We have the order book. There is business going forward. So we just really need to make sure that we can get the profit levels up here.

Thank you very much. Well, it's coming in questions here. Next question. Have you seen any effects on cross-selling in KT Shelter so far?

No, I can't say that we've had any clear contracts connected to that yet. But collaboration and exchanging contacts and inviting each other for different customer meetings and so on, that I think happened already before closing. So I'm very confident that it's -- I mean, it's an extremely good cultural match between KT Shelter and what W5 before KT Shelter. So communication is easy. And -- but to me, that's the #1 step towards making cross-selling happen. So I'm confident that we will see this in the future.

Going back to the framework agreement with FMV of SEK 700 million. How does this framework agreement compare -- what does it look like compared to historical agreements with FMV?

Well, it is a follow-on contract. I mean this framework agreement is a result of the fact that we have been the single sort of supplier of, for example, live-fire training -- or not single, but a very important supplier of live-fire training towards the Swedish Armed Forces for many, many years. So this is to be able for the customer to continue that relationship with us and making sure that they can upgrade the systems that they have and so on. So it is fair to say that it's -- I mean, it's a continuation of what we've done before, and it's a result of the fact that we have delivered successfully in earlier framework agreements. Of course, there are some adjustments to it. And I think it's fair to say that it reflects the -- well, the increased demand that the customer have now. And I think it has some flexibility to it that is really good and so on. But again, it's -- I mean, this is a framework. It makes it easier for us to sell. It makes it easier for the customer to procure. Terms and conditions are in place, et cetera, et cetera. But we still need to -- I mean, we still need to make the sell for the contract as always.

Here's another question on this framework agreement that we talked about, if you're feeling confident with the margins in the framework.

Definitely in the specified products that we have. And there are, sort to say, mechanisms to make sure that these are catered for over time and so on with the indices, et cetera. So yes, we are confident in that. But again, like I said, the agreement has some flexibility to it. So we can't just -- we don't really know exactly what contracts that will be sort of attributed to this framework agreement.

The questions are really coming in here. So now we're shifting focus a bit, talking...

I thought people [ were on some leave ]. We never had these many questions. Okay.

Yes. So it's very nice.

Keep ongoing. We have some time.