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Afry Ab

Q12026

4/28/2026

speaker
Linda Pålsson
CEO

Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you for joining us today as we present AFRI's results for the first quarter of 2026. I am Linda Pålsson and I am the CEO of AFRI. I will begin with some highlights from the quarter before handing over to our CFO Bo Sandström and after that we will open the line for In Q1, our strategy execution continued to progress according to plan. Our order backlog grew 6.4% year-over-year to 21.5 billion SEK, which is a testament to the strength of our client offerings and our focus on sales execution. Our strong order backlog positioned us well to drive profitable growth in line with our strategy going forward. In the quarter, we improved profitability with an EBITDA margin gain that increased to 7.5% from the calendar adjusted margin of 7.1% in Q1 last year. This was mainly driven by a continued positive development of the utilization rate, which improved 1.1% at points. We saw strong performance in our global division energy and industry, while results in transportation and places were weaker. Net sales declined 4.3% organically in the quarter, and that is mainly a result of a challenging market and the capacity adjustments we have made over the past year. Global uncertainty remained high at the beginning of the year, which continues to impact the market conditions in some of our segments. As we conclude the first quarter, we are now approaching the end of a comprehensive restructuring phase aimed at optimizing our capacity and portfolio. With steady development in Q1, we are moving in the right direction, and we will continue to execute our strategy to reach the performance levels we are targeting. We're then going into the divisions, and let's begin with energy. Here we see a continued favorable market across the sector, which reflects in a strong order backlog development in the quarter. Investments in grid capacity and resilience of energy supply chains are driving strong demand in several areas, most notably in transmission and distribution. But demand is also solid in hydro and pump storage, as well as in nuclear. And in the quarter, the division delivered positive organic sales growth and EBITDA margin improvement. And that was driven by the solid performance and the higher utilization in several of the energy segments. Moving on to industry, and here we continue to see that persistent market uncertainty is impacting overall demand. as clients remain cautious around investment decisions for the larger project. At the same time, demand remains strong for defense-related solutions that strengthen resilience and national security. This continues to be a key growth area for AFRI going forward, and we are therefore reinforcing our strategic focus on security and resilience. And to support this, we launched a new defense segment within the industry division during the quarter. The segment brings together APIS technology and engineering expertise to better support clients and partners in the Nordic defense sectors. So with more than 70 years of experience, we will continue to deliver our leading solutions across engineering, cybersecurity, digitalization and resilience. In Q1, profitability within the industry division improved despite declining net sales. This was mainly driven by efficiency measures and higher utilization. Then moving on to our final global division, transportation and places. Demanding the transport infrastructure remains stable. It's supported by large national investment programs. We also here see increased defense-related investments across the infrastructure sector. We focus on strengthening infrastructure resilience. Meanwhile, conditions in the real estate market continue to be challenging. Competition is high for the projects that are available, which leads to weak price development in our main markets. To address the challenging market environment and strengthen our position going forward, we have implemented restructuring measures and other necessary changes in the real estate business over the past few quarters, including organizational adjustments and rebranding initiatives. These changes, combined with a challenging market, have pressured our performance in parts of the division this quarter. And we expect that the impacts of these changes have phased out in the second half of the year, while we continue to navigate the market conditions in the real estate sector. As mentioned, we strengthened our order backlog during the first quarter with several new client projects. And as usual, I would like to highlight a few examples. First, I was pleased to see us further strengthen our partnership with SatNet. As AFRI was entrusted to lead the overall project execution for a new transformer station, this is a key grid infrastructure project in Norway that will strengthen the power system to meet growing electricity demand driven by industrial development and electrification. And within our chemicals and biorefining segments, we secured another important partnership as energy company Vega selected AFRI for the pre-engineering phase of a new biorefinery facility. Once realized, the facility will become Finland's largest biogas plant, producing clean energy and supporting sustainable agriculture. And finally, we were awarded a contract by Berlin's Water and Wastewater Utility to design a new ozone treatment stage at one of the city's wastewater treatment plants. The facility serves around 300,000 residents, and by improving the ability to remove micropollutants, AFRI will help deliver a resilient and sustainable wastewater treatment for the city. Moving on, a key focus area for us in our profitable growth journey is to focus on capturing opportunities in sectors with long-term growth potential. And in the quarter, we announced an agreement to acquire AMC, a leading mining consulting firm based in Australia. AMC has a strong global reputation and deep sector expertise, particularly in the early phases of mining projects. And by joining forces, we will further strengthen AFIS mining and metals offering and expand our ability to deliver comprehensive solutions across the full life cycle. for leading clients in the mining industry. AMC also brings a strong data foundation that enables data and technology-driven mine design capabilities that position us well to meet growing client demand. So this acquisition is really a strong, strategic fit for AFRI. It's supporting our priorities in terms of segments, geographic presence, lifecycle offering, culture, and size. So I'm very much looking forward to welcoming AMC's employees to AFRI in the second quarter when we expect to finalize this transaction. Another area that is a key focus for us going forward is of course artificial intelligence. And strengthening our delivery through AI is a core part of AFRI's strategy. We are applying AI across multiple parts of the business and are continuously exploring new digital opportunities to remain at the forefront of this development. And as a part of this ambition, we have entered into strategic collaboration with a Swedish tech company, Endra, which has developed an AI-based platform to support engineering in building design. We are now evaluating the technology from the inside and early results indicate strong potential to automate process and improve system and design accuracy. These types of solutions have the potential to amplify our expertise and enable our consultants to focus more on the deeper analysis, sharper insights, and greater strategic impact. So very excited to follow this partnership going forward. And now I would like to hand over to our CFO Bo Sandström who will take us to the financials in greater detail.

speaker
Bo Sandström
CFO

Thank you, Linda. I will cover the financials for Q1 2026. Quarter one showed net sales of 6.3 billion and EBITDA excluding IEC of 473 million. Adjusted organic growth remains in negative territory in line with last quarter. On rolling 12 months, we're currently at 25.3 billion on net sales. Rolling 12 months, EBITDA margin increased slightly to 7.3% despite the negative calendar in the quarter. The order backlog continues to develop favorably and is reported at 21.5 billion, an improvement of 6% to last year and 5% sequentially. The order backlog is the highest ever reported. The majority of the sequential improvement stems from the energy division, which is now 16% higher than last year. The remainder of the increase comes from transportation and places, in particular from road and rail. In Q1, with a net sales of 6.3 billion, we report adjusted organic growth of negative 4.3%, same as last quarter, where volume continues to be pressured by capacity adjustments related to our restructuring agenda. The market price pressure in some segments seen in the latter part of 2025 continue in the beginning of 2026. This is particularly evident for segments within industry and transportation and places. Total growth is reported at minus 6.3%, affecting materially in the fourth consecutive quarter by FX movements. Structural effects in Q1 relate to the net of the acquisition of RETA during 2025 and three smaller non-core divestments completed in the quarter. The negative adjusted organic growth in Q1 was the same as in Q4 2025, but with some movement in respective division. Global division energy is now again showing organic growth, despite strong comparables from last year. Industry remains at minus 6% adjusted organic growth, reflecting a continued challenging market and capacity adjustments during the last 24 months. Transportation and places declined further in the quarter as a consequence of capacity adjustments in the end of 2025, combined with a continued weak real estate market. We report a utilization of 72.2% for Q1, more than a percentage point higher than Q1 last year. We see improved year-over-year utilization for all divisions, in particular for global division industry. This is the second consecutive quarter where we reported improvements last year, and it is a continued important step for our strategic efforts to improve operational efficiency in A3. The level of improvement this quarter was, however, partly supported by weak comparables. We will continue our focus on improving this metric to be one of the main drivers of profitability improvement over time. EBITDA excluding IIC is reported at 473 million with negative calendar effects of 11 million. The EBITDA margin was at 7.5%, an improvement from 7.3% reported last year and 7.1% last year calendar adjusted. Currency movements have limited impact on the EBITDA margin, but in absolute terms, we estimate a negative currency impact of 17 million on EBITDA compared to last year. As in last quarter, global divisions Energy and Industry support the margin development of the group. And particularly for Industry, we see positive trends that the division is coming out of the restructuring agenda with improvements in utilization supporting the EBITDA margin development despite negative growth. Energy, supported by improved utilization and strong backlog development, managed to improve from already high levels. The margin in the quarter in transportation and places was pressured by effects from restructuring and other measures during the last two quarters, in combination with a continued challenge in real estate markets. We report 47 million restructuring costs as item affecting comparability in Q1, bringing our total to 239 million in the ongoing restructuring program. The restructuring costs again primarily relate to redundancies across the group, and for Q1, now more focused towards support functions. We've made significant progress in our efforts to reshape the portfolio, and as we have now moved into 2026, we intensify our efforts on addressing the cost base. With only one quarter to go in the restructuring program, we reiterate our estimate that the total restructuring costs will be at the upper end of our guidance of 2 to 300 million. Following a record-strong operational cash flow in the fourth quarter, we have a more moderate operational cash flow in Q1, somewhat lower than last year. On a rolling 12-month perspective, the operational cash flow remains strong. Available liquidity increased to 5.2 billion as we are prepared to distribute dividend and close the AMC acquisitions during Q2. Our financial position remains strong. We see a marginal sequential increase on net debt and a corresponding increase on net debt over EBITDA. Dividend distribution and the completion of the AMC acquisition will increase leverage further over the next two quarters, but we expect to close the year at or below our financial target. With that, I leave back to you, Linda.

speaker
Linda Pålsson
CEO

Thank you, Bove. So, to summarize the first quarter of 2026, the execution of our Unlocking AFRI strategy continues to progress according to plan. As part of this, we are now nearing the completion of our restructuring agenda. We saw steady progress in both the utilization rate and EBITDA margin in the quarter, as a result of the structural measures to improve efficiency. We also, again, strengthened our order backlog, which is another key enabler for profitable growth going forward. At the same time, the overall market uncertainty remains high, and it is evident that market conditions in some segments do not yet support our ambitions for profitable growth. With that said, looking ahead, we are focused on capturing growth opportunities in the market. We continue to prioritize sales to maintain a strong order backlog and build on this foundation to drive backlog conversion. We will also continue to advance key initiatives to harmonize our operation, improve efficiency, and sustain our positive utilization trend. Finally, we will complete the restructuring agenda in the second quarter as planned, while working to ensure an effective transition out of the restructuring phase to enable continued strategy execution at full speed. So with that, we will open up for questions. Yes.

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