Boreo

Very good morning from Vantaa, from the Voreo headquarter, and welcome to Voreo's Q4 2023 webcast event. My name is Kari, I'm the CEO of the company, and together with our CFO Aku, we go through the highlights of Voreo's year 2023 and Q4 2023. Agenda, looking at that briefly, I will start going through the highlights of 23, so looking at the bit on the whole year development. Then I'll still continue with the topic that we also communicated earlier today morning, so a strategic review we've carried out on our portfolio, and then recap the logic and kind of ideas there behind, and then I'll hand over to Akku to go through Q4 23 performance more in detail. So feel free to use the Q&A function that's there available, and we'll take the questions at the end of the show. So starting on from 23, so first of all, I mean, looking at the big picture, I think the company continues to develop in the right direction with regards to the way we both steer the group from a parent company point of view. as well as how the companies operate as part of the portfolio. So a steady, continued progress we've made during the last four years, and significant steps there in 2023 as well. three acquisitions during the year, three great companies, which pretty much represent the kind of target profile of what we aim Boreo to be in the future. So acquisition of and with disinfection company based in Finland, a company with long-standing history of generating high profits, high margins, good returns on capital, and with good prospects going forward for creating sustainable earnings growth towards the future as well. Similarly, similar sort of characters, although a very different sort of a company, Delphin Technologies acquired mid of 23, a great company which has started, both of the companies started the journey as part of Boreo quite nicely and as expected, but overall kind of demonstrate what sort of businesses we intend to acquire going forward. And last but not least, a small add-on acquisition we made to Muotti Kolmio, with the purchase of LAMOX in Q1 2023. We also launched, with regards to the operating model and the playbook, overall the value creation playbook that we use here, a Boreo, first version of the Boreo book in mid last year, As a consequence of that, basically also the strategic review that I'll go through in a bit more detail continues the same story. I think we've come a long way from spring 2020 with regards to the way we operate the companies, steer our businesses, what sort of capital allocation priorities we have, and I'm happy to see that day by day we are continuing to move into the right direction. And then next week, we will publish at the end of next week, we'll publish our first proper annual report also, including then a sustainability report. So in 2022, 2023, we've done the work around sustainability in the world, I mean, group wide, including our companies. So pleased to be pleased to be there that we can we can kind of showcase what we've done to date as the first step of of bringing sustainability also more of an integral part of the way our companies and the group overall operates. Strategically, the company went in the right direction in 2023. Financially, the year was a challenging one. The challenges increased towards the end of the year. So although we are looking at the key numbers from 2023, we see improvement pretty much in all of the figures. Slight increase in net sales, a more significant increase in our profits, also in profitability margins, a very strong cash flow, operative cash conversion of close to 130%, and slight improvement in our return on capital employed. This is, however, not what in the first place we have started. I mean, we have expected for the year, or neither are we satisfied with the performance. We feel that the company and the current portfolio businesses can generate both higher sales, higher margins, and also have the ability to operate with higher returns on capital as well. Akko will discuss a bit more in detail the Q4 course later on. But if you look at full-year performance, so starting on from sales, as you can see from this slide, pretty much group-wide, the pressure on sales generation increased towards the end of the year, pretty much throughout the portfolio. If we look at the key contributors to this, first of all, the organic growth was significantly negative by roughly 12 million euro. From that, 2.5 million euro roughly is a result of the exit in sunny businesses in Finland and Sweden. And then the main contributors to the decline were a couple of the companies of which we communicated throughout last year where the challenges were. So Signal Solutions at first, Yleis Elektroniikka, where in particular our RS business in four different countries faced quite significant decline in revenues. And then our excavator business in Estonia. Acquisitions, on the other hand, contributed and brought the overall group level reported sales numbers to the positive side, but I mean, goes without saying that with this sort of a portfolio and with the amount of acquisitions we've done in 22, also 23, we should be on a higher level when it comes to sales. On the more of the positive side, I would say, is the way our company, I mean, how resilient the portfolio in terms of margin generation has been. You can see from these graphs that in all of the business areas, the cross-margin profiles are improving. They are improving partially because of the reason that the latest acquisitions made, I mean, those companies carry a much higher cross-margin. but also then importantly that in this sort of a cycle, if we look at, for example, our construction businesses, such as the Butchmeister business in Finland, Sweden and Estonia, When new machine sales are down, the aftermarket business supports profitability quite nicely. The gross margins are way more higher than in new sales, and profitability then, on the other hand, remains on a decent level. So this is a good message, of course, for many of our businesses of the resilience of the portfolio in tougher times as we are currently experiencing. Profitability also, I mean, not improving as nicely as we've expected, but still on a stable level. So despite the very significant 18% sales decline in 2023, the margins are still keeping up quite okay. Continuing on a positive note, as we've explained and discussed throughout the last couple of years, there's been in the firm a heavy focus since, I would say, 21, 22, in rooting the mindset of capital efficiency, gas generation into our companies. I think to a great extent also, with support of those developments, we've been able to generate nice nice cash flow throughout the last 12 months, of course, partially also impacted through the inventory cycles we've seen in the world following the COVID years and then the developments in the market. But all in all, the good progress we made in terms of reduction of working capital at the year end, roughly at 30 million euro in absolute terms and expecting gradually coming down in those numbers in levels in the group. So towards the 25 million euro mark in the short term, Also, I mean, if we look at our group and company portfolio returns, so measured through return on capital employed at group level and through return on trade working capital at company level, I mean, during the year 23, we took a step in the right direction, improving the margins from 27 to 30%. I mean, without the sunny exit, the sunny business to over 32%. which is mainly driven by cash generation and then not as good of a development as we would have liked to see due to softer profit development. But definitely looking at this portfolio of companies, these companies can operate at higher levels of return on trade working capital the target of continuing to push and steer the portfolio towards the 50% mark that we set for our companies. Then the final slide on 23, I mean, looking at the strategic targets after a, I mean, if we look at the performance since 21, we've grown profits quite significantly from 3.9 million euro to 9.5 million euro, a positive development as such, but looking at 20, 23, then 8% growth, especially in light of the number of acquisitions made, not where we would have liked to see the growth to have been. Returns, the same thing, continued improvement is expected, and we're working hard on that to steer the portfolio towards the 15% mark. leverage has been really stable if we look at it on a longer term perspective already at around 2.5 times net debt to the operation of EBITDA and as we've communicated on our short-term priorities and then given also the coming in less than a year time the maturity of our existing hybrid bond. Our intention is to continue to maintain and prioritize the financial standing overall in the group, and we continue to evaluate alternatives on the financing and capital structure development side as well. So room to improve and to reach our strategic long-term targets. Finally, then I move forward to the strategic review part, which we published in the morning with a separate press release. This is not a revolution of our strategy, but it's more of an evolution. As I said, having worked with the operating manual last year with the team overall, made more experience of how we best view the companies to be steered. We've communicated today morning that the sort of crystallized playbook on how we intend to both improve our earnings but also improve the capital efficiency of the group. It's basically the playbook which is laid out here in three different parts. So continuing to acquire similar sort of companies that we acquired in 23. companies with ability to generate earnings growth, cash flows and high returns on capital. This is the goal toward which we steer the group systematically. Secondly, we have a We have a number of companies in our portfolio which possess a good organic growth potential where with further investments one can generate attractive or significant growth and with an attractive return profile. So clearly categorizing the portfolio from this perspective as well And then finally, clearly the 50% return threshold is something that we expect our companies to meet in the short to mid-term. We have, if you look at our portfolio, I'll show a slide next, which kind of illustrates a bit where we are, but clearly a portfolio which has the potential to meet these targets if we look at a mid-term perspective. And as we are, I mean, we are a long-term owner of our companies. We are a long-term owner of companies that can generate the sort of returns and margins that we expect to meet. Also bringing the flavor in that our companies need to meet those targets over a longer period of time. And if that's not the case, also structural considerations are something that we are ready to entertain. And then finally, providing a bit more flesh over the bone with regards to the update, I mean, this scatterplot illustrates on the y-axis the profitability of our companies, on the x-axis our return on trade working capital of the different companies, and divided our companies so that the grey rounds there on the balls are the old companies which were part of the group before the Boreo era started pretty much in 2020 and then the newly acquired companies since 2020. So you can, I think this graph illustrates quite nicely what we've done in terms of where the focus has been in terms of capital allocation historically. uh so uh one two three four five six companies uh operate at at the sort of at the type of pro financial profile where where we expect those to be a couple of the businesses we've acquired you can see uh there being in between of five to ten percent profitability margins and less uh and below the 50 return on trade working capital threshold also reflects some of the challenges that we've had with a couple of businesses discussed last year in our updates. And I think finally, if we look at the portfolio of the older companies, which primarily still sits below the 10% profitability threshold and also the 50% return on trade working capital threshold, there's clear potential in these companies to improve both profitability and returns. We have in all of these companies action plans and plans in place. or which are either already in progress or will be in progress in the short term with the focus to improve both the return and margin profile of these companies. So very confident, very happy of this refinement or crystallization of the value creation playbook that we've communicated and overall also in terms of culture of the group, very important sign as the way we think about the portfolio companies that we own. So with that said, that's a brief run-through of 2023 and today's updates, and then I'll hand over to Haku for his theory.

Okay, thanks. So let's wrap up the year from Q4 point of view, and also some repetition on the full year's perspective. So Q4, in brief, challenging end for the year, as mentioned, declining sales, decline of roughly €7 million compared to Q4 2022 due to the total weak market conditions in different businesses and in different companies. Moderate profitability a bit below Q4 2022 level. However, positive is that margin we were able to improve despite of the aforementioned facts. Cash conversion still very good in Q4, a bit landing to the normal levels compared especially to the Q4 22 and also to the previous quarter, but 73% is very good level, as well as the operational cash flow of 2.1 million was also positive. Cost optimization actions are ongoing, and we are expecting over €1 million net cost impacts affecting the profitability and supporting the profitability from mid-2024 onwards. Then some short-term priorities defend our profitability and performance. So from the profit side, firstly, of course, very many different actions from sales side, from pricing and gross margin management side, cost control actions in group wide, meaning in headquarter operations, as well as in the operative companies ongoing. Already mentioned the net cost saving target of over one million euro per annum. So the full run rate impact we expect to see then starting from the mid this year onwards. So in mid 25. And then cash flow has been very positive during the war and we definitely focus there on onwards also and expect to still release the capital, especially from the trade working capital side. The speed has been quite fast now in the latter part of last year. I think the curve will level out a bit, but still where we landed roughly to 30 million euro level in the end of last year. The target is to go towards 25 million. So there is still great room for improvement. And finally, number three there, financial standing. We have today announced that the board proposes to AGM that no dividend will be paid from 2023. and that is to prioritize the financial standing. And as Kari mentioned, we are evaluating the ongoing and continuously the different alternatives also in the capital structure development side. Shortly recapping full year picture, rolling 12-month sales in par with 23. We see the decreasing trend in the end of the year. And then on the right, rolling 12-month EBIT development. So that also very stable during the past quarters. Luckily, and very good, was the improvement in the margin size. So rolling 12-month EBIT increased by 8% year-on-year. Same in quarterly figures. I will not go into details anymore here, as this was already mentioned, but moving on to the bridge, which we have normally used in the quarterly presentations. So this shows the sales bridge between organic companies, meaning companies that were all ready in the group before Q4 2022, and then the dark blue bar, which is then the acquisitions upon that one, meaning sematic in the end of 2022, and also filtered and delved. So, minus 10% sales development in organic companies, organic businesses, were a bit offset by the positive from the inorganic company side. And here, even more, we can see the positive offsetting of the new company's impact to the profit, which basically offset the negative development in the organic businesses side. 2.1 million euros Q4 EBIT, operational EBIT, compared to 2.2 years back. And then the long-term trend of our cost development, cost ratios in the left here, direct cost ratio, and quite saw decrease, meaning positive in terms of gross margin development. And there are several factors, and the main factor is the company mix. So the newcomers to the group have a higher gross margin profile than the old companies, which then in the group level impacted positively. Then on the other hand, in indirect cost side, cost ratio side, vice versa. So these new companies have a bit higher indirect uh cost ratio profile compared to the rest of the group but also of course the declining sales now in in the end of the previous year impacted also on the cross cost ratios then moving on to the business areas electronics first um Operational EBIT margin landed on 7.5% level, a bit below 22 Q4 level, so decent performance, but quite heavily impacted, especially in H2 last year due to the weakening market conditions, especially in the in the electronic component distribution businesses in Finland and in the Baltics also. You mentioned that in YEE Finland we have done the reorganization actions, and that should then also support the profitability going forward. Few exceptions, Milkkon, strong end for the year, where the defense industry is still supporting the business well, and also the outlook remains positive. Also, SSN has had a very difficult year, slight positive signs towards the end of the year, but still the main reason is the main customer's investment holiday, which at least in the short term now impacts on the on the performance. And the Elfin result moderate, however, pretty much according to the plan. Capital efficiency return on trade working capital decreased from the previous quarters, however, being in relatively good level, although we are targeting above 50 here. But this was basically because of the decreased profitability at the end of the year. Technical trade, good performance throughout the year and also in Q4. However, depending and differing quite a lot between businesses and even within the company. Starting from machinery, power business, very strong 23 and still the latter part of the year, and Q4 was good. There is decent order backlog supporting still the outlook, and especially in the generator business and service business, we see very good growth possibilities. Construction businesses or construction-related businesses in multi-column and in machineries construction equipment business, very difficult year. i would say the whole year but especially again the last part of the year big performance definitely not satisfied there but but also in these businesses we have initiated cost actions to support performance in the short term and in the long term also then from the more investment-related businesses, welding, welding business in Pronius, and metal machines business in Machinery. Difficult market environment, but especially in Pronius side, very good performance during the year and in Q4. Tematic and filtered asset, the newcomers to the group, very well supported the business and performance over the year and in the end of the year also. And there we have steady outlook going forward. Capital efficiency, one of the positives in technical trade side. Improvement, decent or gradual improvement during the past quarters, still bloom to improve definitely, but especially in machinery side, we have been able to release capital nicely during the year. And then heavy machine side, same here, a bit different situation per company, but if we start from the profitability, although being on a very low levels, but we can see that the profitability has improved from the comparison period. And same goes with the return on capital employed, where we have seen now the change in the trend, but of course, we are not even close to the levels that we aim to be there. In Budmeister business in Sweden, we have decent outlook and very, or not very, but good result during the Q4, supported by the aftermarket and service business, and with that also higher margins in Q4. In Finland, on the other hand, we have worse market environment, and also the outlook is soft, and the performance was definitely not in a good level. Positive sign here, F&B, that we have reported during the year that there has been different challenges, internal challenges, and also on the market side, delivery capabilities, ERP implementation, etc. But now we saw in Q4 that these struggles have eased up and we returned to the good level of sales and also profit Q4. and expect that to continue. And as mentioned, capital efficiency improved, where also the exited sunny business in the mid last year impacted positively. Finally, our other operations. So again, 1.2 million euro sales in the quarter. That is not a mistake. That has been really the stable development during the past quarters, so no major ups or downs in that business. Then our strategic target, once again, return on capital employed. As we can see from the blue bars, it has been very stable. The return on capital employed has been very stable during the year, basically, and also the return on capital employed has been very stable during the past quarters because of very stable EBIT rolling well. A return on equity, then on the other hand, a bit sharper decline towards the end of the year, and that is because of the increased interest expenses we have seen, especially during 2023. This was already pointed out by Kari, but still the NetDev2 operational APTA, one of our strategic targets. We are in the mid-range there, so that has been also very stable now one and a half years, basically. And gas conversion and gas flow overall, definitely positive. That has to be highlighted from the previous year. And then earnings per share and cash flow per share, blue bars on the left. So, of course, the positive cash flow development impacted positively there also. And to end Q4 cash flow, operative cash flow of 2.1 million euro, a bit lower. green bar as we have seen during the previous quarters, but still very happy on that. So I think that was the wrap-up of 23 from financial side.

Okay, thank you. So we head over to Q&A. I think I've tried to publish pretty much all the questions which are there, so 25 of those. Thank you. Appreciate that. So let us do our best to go through this in an efficient manner. I tried to take this partly some overlapping questions. So first of all, there's a few questions on cost initiatives we said. So can we provide some color on the cost initiatives and the magnitude by BAs also? So what sort of savings these are? I mean, this is everything what has been already decided, part of them in Q4, part of them already in Q3, and then now Q1. These are, I would say, there are more than a million euro of savings, gross savings that we are generating. On the other hand, then there are other both personal expense plus OPEX increases in our company. So the net impact minimum that we're looking at this is sort of the minimum of one million that we expect from starting from 1st of July. onwards, but they are both parent company-related actions. We've reduced both the OPEX and HQ, also downsizing of the team. We're talking about roughly half a million euro there. Then in all of the business areas, we're looking at something closer more towards half a million euro in gross savings and then I said some new costs that typically then offset part of those savings but we've completed as there was one question on why if we finish why reorganization so that is the most sizable reorganization that has been completed. This is pretty much related to reorganizing the organization so that it still, let's say, brings efficiency into into the company but of course accounts for some of the declines in activities that we've seen and then reflects the view on market outlook but also structurally changes which we see to improve the quality of the business going forward. So all in all touching those cost initiatives touch all of the different sort of layers in the group are everything designed on a business company to company basis because of the reason that the companies are different within the group and actions need to be taken company-wide, company specifically. Then let me give a few questions to Aku here. First of all, can you comment on the in more detail. I think you already touched upon that, but let me recap quickly. Technical trade revenues decline.