Lassila & Tikanoja Oyj

Good morning and welcome to Lassilan Tikanoja earnings release for the first half of 2025. We have a little bit of a special combo here today with me. So I have Joni Suorsanen, our CFO, and then Antti Niitympää, head of our facility services business, here with me today. Good morning. Good morning. Yes. Well done. OK, so today we have two sections in our presentation. First, we will go through normal earnings release and we will have our first Q&A session after that. And then the second section or second half of the presentation will be focused on the partial demerger process and a little bit of the description of the new companies, and then there will be another Q&A session after that section. So two sessions, and I will stop then after the normal earnings release. Good, but let's go and then Joni and Antti will join me for their sections of the presentation. So a few highlights from the first half of 2025. We had very solid performance in circular economy and very nice improvement in facility services Finland. Strong sustainability performance. Our customer satisfaction reached an all-time high. NPS, so very good performance there. And then obviously the big news of today, that our board of directors approved the demerger plan to separate the circular economy business operations in the new publicly listed company. But I will get back to all of this later in the presentation. Net sales. Overall, our net sales declined still in second quarter, but less than in Q1. And after the first six months, we are some 3% behind previous year. Reasons are more or less the same as they were in the first quarter. In circular economy, The depressed general economic situation in Finland affected us, especially in the construction sector. In facility services Finland, lower contract portfolio due to discontinuation of the loss-making contracts. And in facility services Sweden, we actually did see sales growth. And that was due to the new customer contracts we got at the end of last year and also a slight support from a stronger Swedish crown. But mainly the growth really came from or through these new customer contracts. When it comes to adjusted operating profit overall, a very strong performance for the whole company. Our adjusted operating profit was 17.6 million. this year compared to 12.7 million a year ago, so almost a 5 million euros improvement, meaning close to 40% improvement on the comparison period. As I said, a very stable performance in circular economy and main improvement came from facility services, Finland, but also Sweden improved, even though it still was loss making in the first half of this year. If we take a little longer perspective and look at the development from the past five years, we can see that the performance in circular economy has been very stable. Whereas in facility services, we can now see that the turnaround is actually taking place, as we have indicated earlier. Last 12 months, end of June already, shows that the adjusted EBIT was 8 million euros, which is 2.3% in the facility services and clearly looking much better than in the past years. Then I'll move on to the segment information and in a circular economy business, as I said, solid performance despite the challenging conditions and the relative profitability remained stable year on year. Our efficiency improvement measures were visible in the profitability. This also means that we were able to defend our margins. And this is obviously very important because hopefully we will see some growth in the market also in the future. And it is important to be able to sort of maintain the price level. Annual maintenance breaks in the industrial sector were carried out as planned and resourcing was successful. In hazardous waste business, the performance was very much in line with the comparison period. The weak economic situation did affect our environmental construction business. We got less land masses than earlier, but I'm really happy to see that we have been quite successful with our project sales. We also mentioned in our interim report that there is a very large project that we are doing for Uulid and Harjavalta. that will continue quite some while from here on, but also in other projects, we have been quite successful. So our project portfolio in environmental construction looks very promising. In facility services, Finland, strong profitability improvement in January, June. And the revenue decrease came in the first quarter because of the mild winter, but also because of the planned optimization of our contract portfolio. The demand for our digital services has remained strong and we expect that to remain strong in the future. It obviously brings growth by itself, but then more importantly it also increases our customer loyalty and helps us to sell also the basic services. So we're very happy with the development of our new digital services. Our efficiency measures continued successfully, as you can see from the numbers. Especially this was the case in property maintenance. Obviously these are sort of long-term programs and we will continue to execute these programs and I'm optimistic that we can see even better profitability in facility services in the future. Already the improvement is almost a little over 4 million euros, which is more than 200% over the previous year. And our adjusted operating margin now after the first six months of this year was 5.4%, which is on a good level even compared to our peers. In facility services Sweden, The turnaround is happening. We are on the right path. but the operations were still loss making in the first six months. We will continue our efforts and based on these new customer contracts and sort of ongoing efficiency programs, I am optimistic that we will see improvement in the facility services in Sweden in the second half of this year. One thing that is behind in the good performance, especially in the circular economy, is the fact that our fixed cost base has decreased due to the active efforts that we have done. And the pace is approximately one million euros per quarter. And this was despite the fact that we had about half a million extra cost in circular economy due to the rollout of our ERP system. We expect that there will be about the same amount in the second half of this year. We have rolled out about two thirds of our sites into the ERP system, so one third left. But obviously there is still some bug fixing and other things to do. So that's why we expect there will be still some extra cost and extra personnel in the second half of this year. Our sustainability work has also been successful. And perhaps a couple of highlights from the first six months. Our own carbon footprint decreased by 22%. compared to 2024, a similar period. And this is an excellent achievement. And it is because of the very sort of systematic development we have done now for several years. We have replaced some of our diesel fleet with biogas trucks. We have further increased our use of biodiesel, and also we have trained our personnel to drive more economically, and all of this is supporting us in achieving this target. Also, the customer satisfaction reached all-time high, as I said in the beginning already, and our NPS was 41 this spring, which is really good. Now, I think it is Joni's turn to go through the financials.

Thank you, Eero. Yes, as Eero already mentioned, the company had a strong first half of 2025 and as a result of strengthening profitability and improved cash flow, we can report improving key financial metrics almost across the board. Also we can see at the end of the second quarter strong financial position and decrease in net interest bearing debt compared to June 2024. In June we also refinanced part of our long-term debt and I will provide details later in the presentation. We also prepared ourselves for the demerger that was announced today as part of this refinancing process. All right, starting with networking capital. We fell short of previous year's level in networking capital, amounting to minus 29 million euros at the end of second quarter. That is a four million change year on year. And if we look at the performance in the first half of 2025, we can see that net working capital has been tied up by 17 million euros compared to 14 million in previous year. And looking at our segments, we can see that facility services in total, so combining Finland and Sweden, performed in a stable manner compared to previous year. While in a circular economy, we can see networking capital tying up as a result of normal seasonal variation. And as you can see from the graphs, we expect networking capital to follow the annual pattern or quarterly pattern we have seen in previous years. So we expect networking capital to be released towards the end of the year. Capital expenditure was somewhat below previous year. However, the composition of Capital expenditure was somewhat different compared to previous year. In June 2025, we completed the acquisition of Steena Recycling's pallet business, which was investment of approximately 8 million euros. Looking at organic investments, we can see a decrease of more than 7 million euros year on year. And here we can clearly see the decrease in ICT. related investments. And related to this ERP rollout, it's good to note, just like Eero already mentioned, that now we are booking the rollout costs as operating costs instead of capitalizing them. And we have also during the quarter started the amortization of this ERP investment. So that's why our depreciation and amortization expected to increase going forward. Cash flow wise, free cash flow improved by 6 million euros compared to H1-24. We can see that operating cash flow was somewhat below previous year in the first six months, mainly as a result of change in networking capital explained Previously, however, investments were on a lower level compared to previous year, and that's why, as already noted, January-June cash flow somewhat above previous year. On a rolling 12-month basis, we can see that free cash flow at the end of June 25 was around 47 million euros, compared to 41 million at the end of in 2024. Financial position remains strong at the end of the second quarter. Looking at gearing development, we can see that the paid out dividends in April and also the acquisition of this pallet business affected gearing at the end of the second quarter. However, we can see a slight improvement compared to end of Q2 2024. Net interest bearing debt amounted to 178 million euros at the end of the second quarter. That is a decrease of almost 17 million year on year. And today we have announced the the merger plan, according to which this 178 million would be divided between Luotea, which is the facility services company, and New Lassilan and Tikanoja company, so that Luotea would be almost net debt free, while the circular economy company, i.e. New Lassilan Tikanoja, would carry 174 million out of this net interest-bearing debt of 178 million. But more information on the balance sheet split can be found from the demerger plan announced today. As I already noted, we refinanced part of our long-term debt in June, and the first part of the refinancing was was this term loan of 40 million euros, which was set to mature in Q2 26. And now, according to this new agreement, which is three years plus two year extension option, we are moving the 40 million term loan to mature in 2030, assuming that the two year extension option will be utilized. Secondly, agreed revolving credit facilities for both companies. And if the demerger takes place, New Lassila Tikanoja would have a revolving credit facility of 40 million, while Luotea would have a similar type of facility, but the amount would be 10 million euros. Also, we have today announced the consent solicitation process for our outstanding notes amounting to 75 million euros. And in the demerger process, we have prepared ourselves through a bridge facility of 80 million euros. If the note holders wish to exercise their right to redeem, their bond holding through the merger put option. And finally, if we use this bridge facility of 80 million euros, that will be automatically converted into this 35 million term loan. And also want to highlight here that as we stated in Q1, result disclosure, our aim is to move these outstanding notes to New Lassila Tikanoja, which is the circular economy company. More information on the consent solicitation process can be found from the separate stock exchange release. Return on capital employed continue to improve and amounting to 4.9% at the end of the second quarter. It's good to note that in the reported return on capital employed, the outcome is affected by year end 24 goodwill impairment, for example. So here we have also calculated the adjusted return on capital employed, assuming that these items affecting comparative would have not taken place. And there we can see that adjusted return on capital employed amounted to 11.9% at the end of the second quarter. Segment wise, both circular economy business and especially facility services, Finland business can report improving return on capital, especially Facility Services Finland reporting strong return on capital employed development in June, amounting to 78% already. And finally, we can report strong earnings per share growth $0.30 in January-June compared to $0.16 in January-June last year, almost doubling year on year. And net free cash flow per share in the first half, $0.06 compared to minus $0.10 at the end of, or in H1-25. Okay, this is This was the financing section, and then Eero will continue with guidance.

Yes. Don't run away, Joni, if there is the Q&A session. So, yes, our outlook for 2025 remains unchanged, so the net sales 2025 are estimated to be at the same level as in previous year and adjusted operating profit is estimated to be at the same level or better compared to the previous year. As I said, we stop here now and open the lines for your questions regarding the first half report of 2025. And after this session, then we will focus on the demerger.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Nico Ruakangas from SEB. Please go ahead.

This is Nicolaus from SCB. I have four questions in this part of the presentation and I'll go one by one. But I'll start with the guidance. So you keep the guidance unchanged despite being five million euros ahead of 24 in adjusted EBIT in H1. So what is the reason for not raising the lower end of the guidance range and still keeping the possibility of flat EBIT this year?

Good question and obviously there was quite some consideration that we put into this outlook. As you said, the first half performance was clearly better than a year ago. The main reason is that we have strong seasonality in our business and typically the third quarter is by far the largest. And in general, around two thirds of the profit comes in the second half of the year. And this fact combined with, let's say, reasoned turbulence and uncertainty in the market led us to keep the outlook unchanged for now. But obviously, as we get into the third quarter, if there are indications, as we hope, that the good development continues, reminder of 2025, we will then reconsider and revisit the outlook.

Okay, so that we don't need to read it as that you would have seen a negative development in your kind of outlook, but more than H2 is just big in terms of seasonality.

Yes, that is the main reason.

Thank you. Then on circular economy development in Q2, and then also maybe referring back to last year. Last year in Q2, you had several projects in place in Q3, and then they took place in Q2. So how does the seasonal pattern in Q2 and Q3 this year compare to last year?

Yes. Let's say that there has been more changes in the planned maintenance breaks this year than last year. As I'm sure you have seen, there are some difficult times when it comes, especially the pulp and paper industry and in general the process industry. But also in the mining sector, there has been On one hand, the demand for gold has been extremely high. And then on the other hand, there are perhaps other kind of development in other raw materials. So there has been uncertainty in the market that has led into changes of the scope and timing of some of the maintenance breaks. So this is a long answer, but the conclusion is that in big picture it is not very different, but there is perhaps a little bit more uncertainty regarding the timing of these maintenance breaks.

All right, thanks. So kind of that did not actually too much support your earnings year on year. compared to last year.

Can you repeat the question?

The timing in Q2 last year wasn't significant explaining factor in supporting the earnings this year versus last year.

No, I think how it sort of played out this year was that maybe we did get a little bit more maintenance breaks in Q2 this year than we originally expected, but this year wasn't significantly different compared to last year, is perhaps what you're after.

Yeah. Then, the service in Finland, where you have had very strong profitability improvement, as you indicated, and you are now at 6% rolling and just an EBIT margin already. So, you explained several factors there supporting the development, Do you kind of still think that there is room to improve or was there something specifically good in this Q2?

No, there wasn't anything specifically good in this Q2. This is a result of the systematic work we have done now for several years and it just takes long time before we kind of get everything implemented and working as we have planned. And I see that there is still potential, even though performance has improved in property maintenance, but there is still room for further improvement in property maintenance. So it looks quite good right now.

All right, thanks. Then last question from me in this part of the Q&A. So you said that the fixed costs have decreased 2 million euros in H1 now compared to last year, and that similar amount will be also expected in H2. So do you mean that the run rate improvement in 2025 should be 2 million or 4 million?

No, what I was referring to, and I apologize being unclear, what I referred to was that we expect to have half a million extra costs because of the rollout of ERP systems. also in the second half. Our efficiency measures have resulted in a reduction of our fixed costs by approximately 2 million in the first six months. But that didn't say that it would continue in the same way in the second half. But now that you brought up the question, I'd say that there is still a good chance that we will see a reduction in our fixed costs. But at the same time, we have to remember that the comparison period, second half of last year, we already had some of these measures in place. So perhaps it is not quite that much, but we will see.

Thank you, Nikko.

Good questions.

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

Did we have any questions online?

Rauli Juva from Inderes has sent two questions. First one, although facility services in Sweden improved year on year, the losses have been steadily around 1.5 million for several quarters. Why hasn't there been more improvement and what makes you confident H2 will be better?

The main reason is that I have visibility to the things that we have done. We have done a lot of different measures and I can see from other indicators than looking at the financials, that forward-looking indicators that we are on the right track, but also the fact that there is similar seasonality in Sweden as we have in Finland, that third quarter is typically better. than other quarters, so I am confident that we will see an improvement. But also in the first half, we did 1.5 million improvement year on year, which is obviously not enough, but the direction is right.

And then second question, you are clearly ahead of last year in adjusted EBIT for age one, and comments regarding facility services suggests rather improving than weakening age two. Given this, what would need to happen that the full year adjusted EBIT would be only in line with 2024, which is the low end of your guidance?

Yes. I think I already answered this question when Nikko asked the same question, so I probably won't repeat the answer in sake of saving some time. And if, Rauli, you want to get back to this, please feel free to give us a call. But thank you for the questions. Good. Then we move on to the second part of our webcast. And that is the partial demerger. And the background here is that we updated our strategy in end of 2023, when we said that we would focus in circular economy business and start a strategic review on the facility services business. Now, at the end of 2024, we concluded that we will focus on partial demerger, because the analysis showed that this would, in the best possible way, maximize the shareholder value. And now I'm pleased to share the process from here to the actual de-merger, if our EGM so decides in early December. Our board has approved the demerger plan and it has been published today, as we have referred several times, and I encourage you to look into it because it includes a lot of very useful information. Our plan here today is to go through sort of the highlights of the demerger plan, but it is a a pretty long document, so obviously we can't cover everything. And if the EGM decides favorably on this partial demerger, then the listing of new Lassilan Tikanoja would take place in the beginning of January 2026. So what does this mean to the current shareholders of Lassilan Tikanoja? They would have right after demerger 100% ownership in both new Lassilan Tikanoja and Luotea company, which is the name of the new facility services company. And Antti Niitympää will tell you more about Luotea in just a moment. Our key major shareholders representing 27.6% of the shares have committed to support the demerger in EGM. Then obviously, as I said, the EGM has the final say on this partial demerger. We did announce the CEOs and CFOs or proposed CEOs and CFOs of these new companies already in June. And now as a part of this demerger plan, we have published the composition or proposed composition of the boards of directors for both of these companies. And when I look at These proposed boards, I'm happy to say that I see a wealth of relevant experience in both of the boards, and I'm confident that we will have very good guidance from board of directors in New, Lassilan, Tikanoja and Luotea. And the companies will be in good hands should the dementia happen. There has been a substantial amount of work to get us to this point. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our people who have put very long hours and a lot of effort to get the demerger plan in place and all the relevant documentation. So very good work and thank you all. But as you can see, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The prospectus will be published in November and our plan is to have a capital markets day on 26th of November, where we would then present both of these new companies, new Lassilan Tikanoja and Luotea. And then completion of the demerger would happen 31st of December this year. And then the listing of these new companies would take place 2nd of January on the first market day, 2026. OK, and now a few words about new Lassilan and Tikanoja. So what is different? We will create a leading Nordic pure play circular economy company, and this will be a unique opportunity for investors to be part of that journey. The net sales of this new L&T was in the last 12 months, 415 million euros. And if we look at the past five years, the average growth was about 6%. Our EBITDA has constantly been around 21%. or adjusted EBITDA. And adjusted EBITDA has been around 11%. And both of these numbers are amongst the best in Europe in circular economy. 100% of our revenue comes from circular economy with very synergistic portfolio of services. Our customer base is very balanced and we operate kind of across the different sectors of society. Waste will be a scarce resource and it is critical to have a strong position at the source. One of our key strengths is that we have excellent access to waste through our nationwide network in Finland and a very big fleet. We cover the whole value chain, starting from advisory services based on our comprehensive data. into sorting and treatment and further to recycling and utilization. Our services cover also recycling of hazardous waste and we have five strategically placed landfills with very strong permits. We do not run our businesses as we present here, but this is more to offer investors a sort of more comparable look to what our business looks like. We are Clearly a market leader in Finland, as you can see. We are number one in waste management and recycling. We are number one to two in industrial and water. And we are number two in hazardous waste and remediation. Even though we are a big player and a clear market leader, the market is still very fragmented and there are several opportunities for us to grow in these markets, in all of these different areas. As you could see sort of from the five year development that we showed earlier, our business is very stable because we offer critical services for the society, but also because our customer base is very diversified with some 140,000 individual customers and 87% of our revenue is based our revenue base is reoccurring natured with six years average contract duration with very good inflation protection. Resilience of our business is also visible when we look at our financials during the past five years. And if you consider the macro turbulence we have experienced during this period, including COVID and the Russian invasion to Ukraine and subsequent high inflation, et cetera, we have a proven track record with growth and very stable profitability. In our markets there are a number of growth opportunities for us. We have categorized them in three different sort of sections or areas. First, we will seek to further strengthen our position in the Finnish service market. And we will do this organically and inorganically. As I showed earlier, the markets are still very fragmented and we see a lot of opportunities for further growth. Secondly, we have been present in Sweden in circular economy since 2022 or beginning of 22. And during this time, we have almost doubled our business there. Also, Swedish market as such is more than doubled. compared to the Finnish market, so Sweden will be a very important growth market for us going forward. We handle annually about one million tons of material and we believe that there will be more value to be had from that material if and when we are able to expand our role in the value chain. And this is an area where we're constantly working and hopefully in the future we can also show what does it mean in practice. But As an example, there are a number of fractions like plastics, wood, etc., where our role is still fairly limited. And we believe that we could take a much bigger role in that value chain of these materials that go through our hands. But as I said, a lot of different possibilities for growth for us. So as a new L&T, as a pure play, Circular Economy Company will have a more ambitious growth target than current Lassilan Tikanoja. And with very high profitability, our target is to continue to be at this level of 11% EBITDA. We will also have a very strong balance sheet and stable cash flow, which will allow us to grow, make investments, make acquisitions and at the same time pay dividend at least 50% of the net income. So this was a glimpse into the circular economy and new Lassilan Tikanoja. And now I will hand over to Antti, who will tell you more about Luotea.

Thank you, Eero. Luotea will be and is a leading Nordic facility service platform. I'm really excited to present the story of Luotea. Our name brand communicates reliability, trust and brave pioneering way of doing things. It's how we lead the way. I have a 30 years career in facility services, from which Belvi is from L&T, and I've been responsible of Facility Services Finland since August 2021, and from Facility Services Sweden since June 2024. Luota is one of the largest players in facility services in Finland and Sweden. The business is significant also standalone. In Finland, we are third largest, and in Sweden, we have also a solid position and a strong market presence. Both markets have a lot of room for growth, especially Sweden, that is double the size of the Finnish market. We have extensive presence. In both countries, we operate nationwide, and in the whole property services value chain, cleaning and support services, property maintenance and technical services. And we want to be the most sustainable partner for the whole lifetime of customer's facility. And in cleaning Finland, our profitability and customer satisfaction is best in the Nordic countries. Finland's EBITDA is 6%, which is already at a good level, but it can still be improved. And there is still work to be done in Sweden result, but the same playbook that was used to get Finland result in order also works in Sweden. Facility services is a big 12 billion business in Finland and Sweden that is growing faster than GDP. We have recurring necessity services, which are not highly vulnerable to economic ups and downs. We also have asset light business, which means that we can scale without heavy investments. And there are also many drivers that create opportunities for us. For example, tightening energy efficiency legislation, stricter general sustainability requirements, increased digitalization, Built environment maintenance backlog, which is quite huge, it's about 77 billion in Finland, and also outsourcing of the public sector is starting to happen at an accelerating pace, and I will get back to that later on. We have everything it takes to create strong and profitable growth in the market. Firstly, we have extensive portfolio and market presence, which enables cross-sales opportunities. Only 3% of our customers buy all our services. Then secondly, we have a unique spearhead service portfolio that also supports growth of our core services. And thirdly, our proven playbook for significant profitable improvement will help us to get the turnaround in Sweden. I start with the center of this slide first. We have strong spearhead services that offer high growth rates and open doors for the growth of our core services. Luotea's spearhead offering creates significant benefits for both customers and the company. Data-driven model enhances service efficiency by identifying high usage areas, mobile app for real-time tracking and streamlined planning. For example, our customer Vaisala is data-driven cleaned and their data-driven cleaning has helped us to improve the quality and the efficiency of services in changing needs and in demanding environment. We will also publish our data-driven property service concept later this year, which will be quite interesting. Smartti is a new generation intelligent energy management system that takes properties directly to the climate smart era. For example, our customer Redin Shopping Center temperature corrected energy savings in the first heating season was over 2,500 megawatt hours. And this corresponds to electricity consumption of approximately 1,000 apartments in apartment blocks per year. And we have several other similar references. And then sustainability services. We team up with clients to create sustainability roadmaps and secure energy savings with the commitment to deliver planned outcomes. And for example, one large pension insurance company, we prepared a sustainability roadmap that supported the customer in achieving their sustainability goals in facilities. And trust for us increased significantly after which we have been able to grow in the core services significantly better than before. And this applies to all our spearhead services. We have a clear, reputable playbook that's going to provide successful turnaround also in Sweden. As you have seen, we have been able to significantly improve the profitability of our business in Finland. But what you haven't seen is timeline and improvement in different services. 6.7 percentage points improvement in cleaning from 2019 to this year, and almost 9% points improvement in property maintenance services from 2022 today. And on this slide, you can see our playbook on how we have done this in different services. The same playbook will also work in Sweden, where the first results can already be seen. And we have also a clear path for organic growth. Our goal is to grow faster than the market by leveraging our spearhead services that also boost the growth of our core businesses. This is in our own hands our most important source of growth. In our core services, cross-selling also has significant potential, as I told you earlier. Outsourcing will also increase significantly due to the situation in municipalities and well-being service areas. For example, there is ongoing outsourcing case of property services in HUS area with the value of 20 million euros per year. And in my opinion, this proves that outsourcing is starting to realize. We have shown that Finland's result has been fixed, and therefore the EBITDA target is realistic. We have a playbook to get Sweden in order, and we will put all our efforts in making a turnaround. On the other hand, growth has been a challenge for us in the last couple of years as we have cleaned out unprofitable customers from the portfolio. However, now in Finland, we are in a situation where we have great potential to grow. In Sweden, the focus is on putting the result in order. Our cash flow target is currently challenging, as the result in Sweden is still poor and the margin as a whole is still too low. But when we get Sweden in order, this goal will also be realistic. And our dividend payout policy will be to pay at least 50% of the net profit. Thank you.

Thank you, Antti. Good. Now we will have our second Q&A session, so feel free to ask questions regarding the demerger, or you can also ask questions regarding the earnings release if you wish.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6. On your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Niko Ruakangas from SEB. Please go ahead.

I have one question regarding both of the companies. I'll go one by one, starting with the new L&P. You target 11% EBITDA margin in the mid-term, and I guess that the announcement doesn't say exceeding 11%, but you are basically already there on rolling 12-month basis. So does that mean that you don't see realistic opportunities to clearly improve anymore despite the cost measures you are taking? And does it mean that you don't expect bigger relative profitability gains from the profitability measures you are taking on net basis after this year?

Well, it... Basically, or mainly, it means that, because you have to read it in connection with our growth target, that we will seek to grow more than 6% on average going forward. And that is, I'd say, a fairly ambitious growth target. So it also means that we will invest some of the profit improvement we will get through these efficiency measures into getting future growth. So these two targets have to be read together.

All right, I understand. basically without new growth investments you would also expect the profitability actions on net basis despite two separate listed companies that they would support you also in 26 or 27.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, okay. Thank you. Then on Luotea, but I guess that the first part touches also the new energy. So what do you view in this case as mid-term? And then I'll continue on Luotea's sales growth target. You mentioned in L&T's case the acquisitions as part of that growth opportunity, but do you think that acquisitions could be seen also in facility services to achieve this growth target or is this realistic to achieve organically?

Yeah. Well, the first part, midterm, means three to five years in our thinking. And in Luotea's case, and Antti can then compliment if he wants, but our focus right now is to make the turnaround and, as Antti explained, to make these organic growth steps. But obviously the new board of directors of Luotea will then decide when they feel Luotea is ready to make also inorganic growth moves, so make acquisitions and Judging kind of from the good pace of improvement we have seen, it may not be that far in the future, but I don't know, Antti, if you want to... I agree totally. Yes. So I cannot really sort of commit on behalf of the board of the Future Luotea, but my thinking is that the focus right now is still fixing the profitability, but it may be also in the near future that there will be acquisitions in Luote.

Okay, I understand. So that still that the near-term focus is on earnings improvement and maybe the sales growth target to be achieved. So that will be more based on the latter part of this three to five years period. Is that correct?

Yeah, I think that is my thinking as well.

Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.

Thank you, Nikko.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

There are no more questions in the chat.

Okay. In that case, I want to thank Joni and Antti and obviously you behind the lines for listening to this webcast. And I wish you a nice continuation for the week. And if you wish to get more details, feel free to be in touch with Joni or myself or with our IR function. So thank you very much and bye bye.