Alimak Group AB (publ)

thank you and welcome to this quarter one 2026 call and yeah as always i have with me sylva here turning page and a short recap of the group first global industrial company focusing on vertical access solution working safely at height moving people and materials We have some fundamental drivers for our success and the group and global trends like urbanization, health and safety, the regionalization trend that we are seeing, electrification trend, but also now robotization trend that we can facilitate the usage of robotization and automation at height. We do have a leading market position in the niches where we operate, a strong global footprint, which is giving us a fantastic base for our service business, which is a fundamental piece of each division, and also a capital light operation, giving us a strong balance sheet and opportunity to invest. Turning page our strategy the new heights has been with us since 2020 and it's something that has served us very well and we now you know made the step up to 2.0 end of last year so this will continue to be with us as the foundation for the for the group activities. Turning page, we updated also last year some key financial metrics and most important maybe to highlight is to have an average annual revenue growth of 8-12% and also an adjusted beta margin of 20% reached by 2028. Turning page, we dive into Q1. And yeah, overall, it's a result that we are not fully satisfied with, given our ambitions, as you can also understand, even though I would qualify it as a resilient performance in a continued challenging market. Organically, we went down 4% on order intake, but we were up 3% on revenue in the quarter. and a good book-to-bill ratio of one of eight, supporting also a good backlog growth. We continue to see a challenging construction market, and this is affecting construction division, as you understand, but also partly HSPS and facade excess. Also to note in the quarter, a heavy winter season in North America affecting new sales, product sales for HSPS in the quarter, but also the service business for several divisions. We continue also to see a significant currency, a negative currency impact, and it was 8% in the quarter on order intake, giving an effect of 168 million SEC and also a negative impact on adjusted EBITDA of 24 million SEC. As long as the currency more or less stabilizes where we are now, we will also see the same effects in Q2, but then it should be more on the year-over-year level. Adjusted the beta margin of 16.7 down from 17.3. Construction market and also some temporary negative effects in the industrial division that we will come back to. Cash flow, 75 million, giving a leverage of 185. Normally, Q1 is somewhat lower. Last year, we also had a one-off of 28 million SECs. Then this quarter, we had a slow January and February with more invoicing in March, which is then tickling into accounts receivable. And there's something we will collect now in Q2 plus an additional tax payment. So multiple effects also affecting this, but nothing fundamentally changed and it will come back. Turning next page, some more details about Q1. Order intake was 1,788,000,000 SEK, down 11% or 4% organically. We saw an organic increase, industrial, wind and facade excess. While we had a lower order intake in construction and HSPS division. And if you look at construction, you will see now that we have had four quarters more or less stable on order intake and somewhat lower level than also the previous year. Revenue was 1,653,000,000 SEK down 5% or up 3% organically. And we saw growth in wind, industrial and HSPS. It was flat in facade access and organic decrease then in construction division. Adjusted beta at 275,000,000 SEK down from the 300 and it's an 8% decline year over year. And also 8% is also coming from the currency impact. Turning page into service. Key component in all divisions and the service order intake was 749 million SEK in the quarter, down 9% or 1% down at constant rates. We saw an increase in facade access and HSPS. Revenue was 626 million SEK, down 3%, up 6% at constant rates, with positive contribution from facade access, construction, HSPS and wind. The long winter season in North America affected order intake and revenue in the beginning of the quarter. for multiple divisions then. And as you know, this is a fundamental piece of our business. It creates resilience, it creates opportunities, and we continue to see growth opportunities in all divisions which we are actively driving. Turning page and diving into divisions. Facade access continuing on its improvement journey. Order intake was 460 million SEK, down 7%, but up 3% at constant rates. Book-to-bill above one now for the second consecutive quarter, which is a good trend. Strong order intake in the Middle East ahead of the war. Refurbishment and replacement orders continue to be important, and we also had some nice growth in France in the quarter on this topic. We continue to see mixed market conditions in North America now with strong momentum in also California, along with Florida, while New York market remains soft. Revenue was 431 million SEC, down 11% or 1% at constant rates, and reflecting the lower backlog, but also service revenue was affected by this extensive winter season in north america ebita at 52 million sec up from 46 giving a marginal 12 up from the nine and a half and it's coming from our continued focus on more efficient processes better order backlog and discipline project execution Turning page, integrated design services continues to be an important part of this group and one of the initiatives as you, you know, one here and in all divisions on how to take more control of our destiny and growth. And we continue to see positive momentum here in North America and the UK where this were started. But also now we start to see more orders coming in the rest of the world because we drive focus on this. um we also overall drive geographical activities and develop our presence in malaysia and indonesia important markets we believe going forward overall asia but also of course focusing heavily on infrastructure not only north america but now also in europe and middle east Middle East is an important piece for facade execs, not a neglectable. We have quite a lot of people there, but what we have seen so far is that our projects, they are continuing as planned, more or less. However, some new investments are delayed, primarily smaller projects, while the longer, bigger, more strategic projects are remaining active. So short term, not a lot of impact. And then it depends on what happens going forward, of course, whether we will see more impact or not. But if the war now seems like to be ending and tourism are coming back, then we feel also very sure that investments will also continue there. Turning page, industrial continued to grow nicely. Order intake was 440 million SEK, up 2% or 6% organically. Solid equipment order intake in Europe, Asia Pacific, and also stable performance in Americas. Ports, power, infrastructure, especially strong for us. And also aftermarket here was somewhat slow in January and February, but back to speed in March. Revenue was 367 million SEK, up 4% or 10% organically. uh but still impacted by project delays and lower aftermarket activity early in the quarter but here we have as you know a good backlog to support both on the product and the service side going forward a beta at 83 million sec down from 90 giving yeah a somewhat disappointing margin of 22.5 versus 25.3 and so it's lower than the 25 mark that we've been used to now for multiple quarters But driven by temporary mix effects, like more service and even though it was less service in the beginning of the quarter, but also less spare parts sales. But also this effect of the project delays that we saw in the quarter. Turning page, we continue to invest into our key segments and there is a lot of investments also in general into SDS ship to shore cranes. It's also new actors coming into this market and we're staying close and we are getting our share here. We see the power segment, especially in North America, is very strong, driven by data centers, also reigniting all the coal-fired power plants and more gas-fired power plants. So a lot of focus on the energy, which is a strong segment for us, so that's also good. But then we're also driving out-of-the-box or new type of growth initiatives in also this division. utilizing our technology in rack and pinion so we have facilitated to move a robot which is an inspecting and also welding and maintaining the tower which have this flare tip on oil rigs so a new segment or a new opportunity and yeah an example of things we drive in all divisions Turning page to construction, order intake was 369 million SEK, down 25% or 18% down at constant rates. And it's the hoist market specifically that continues to be very weak in Europe and North America. Rental business showed some signs of recovery in Europe, but was partly also offset by some project delays in Canada. And this is driven by the tariff situation between US and Canada. uh but also we had a very strong comparable in australia last year revenue was 346 million sec down 16 or nine percent of constant rates revenue was impacted by the lower order intake for new equipment in previous quarters of course and also um the strong performance in parts and service partly offset the lower revenue than from from new equipment EBITDA at 40 million SEC down from 66, giving a margin of 11.4 versus 16.1. Last year we had a good margin, but still this 11.4 is a good sequential improvement from the previous quarter and supported by our cost initiatives and activities to drive both volume and profit in the division. But the division is, of course, as I said, in a challenging situation with a very tough construction market. Turning page, Karin Båte is now the new head of this division. So she started beginning April. Very happy to have her in place, but also happy that David is then taking the responsibility for Asia Pacific in construction division going forward. Here also we work on product expansion and looking everywhere to find growth when the traditional hoist market is weak and we've been focusing for a long time on mass climbing work platforms. We believe this is a technology that has huge potential and we start to see that this is also turning into lots of opportunities but also concrete sales. So we have some examples of a nice swap order in Denmark, big rental project in Frankfurt, but also a very strong pipeline of new projects in Australia and India that I hopefully can come back to later. Geographical expansion is also important, of course, to find growth and Adelaide, which has been an area we haven't focused much on or not been so much present. We have some very nice projects coming in the quarter. Turning page, HSPS, order intake was 315 million SEK, down 18% or 13% organically. And also important to note, they have a somewhat high comparable. Suspended access and guardrail business in North America was then negatively impacted by the weather conditions in the beginning of the year, January and February. And also the general construction market in Europe is also impacting this business as it has been doing for a while. Revenue was 336 million SEK, down 4% or up 2% organically, and supported by a strong elevator business, while North America was soft overall. EBITDA at 63 million SEC, down from 70, but still giving a good margin of 18.9% versus a relatively high one of 20% last year, and a strong sequential improvement to what we saw in the previous quarter, which is what we also expected. Turning page, a business update on HSPS. So it's a division where we have a lot of things ongoing to really ensure that we can deliver sustainable, profitable growth. It used to be a division with good margins, but not so much growth. So this is why we are changing. And again, because we have high ambitions and we want to see this something fundamentally different than what we have seen. So that means that, you know, we are changing how we work with R&D. We are changing how we work with marketing and all support functions, manufacturing. We are changing how we work in the front end with the sales organization, much closer to our end users, different with our dealers. and we're also focusing on more geographical expansions to move to areas where we haven't been before as well as a integration of interlifts so lots of activities inside this division but again the long-term good investments that we are committed to We have been doing this for a while now, so we also start to see effects from this product development and R&D projects. So here we have some nice examples of projects or products launched in the previous quarter, and it's more to come in the pipe. Turning page, wind, another very strong quarter. Order intake, 214 million SEC, down 2%, but up 6% at constant rates. That's the high level. Order intake increased mainly in North America, India and Americas. And we have strong customer engagement through all regions, basically. Revenue was 186 million SEC, up 22% or 32% in constant rates. And here we continue to have a solid backlog across all markets and we see growth in lifts, ladders, safety devices and parts of basically the full portfolio. EBITDA was 38 million SEK up from 28, giving very solid margin of 20.3 versus 18.2. And it's driven by discipline in all parts of the business. Turning page. The wind market continues to look strong. It's an improved growth outlook. And I think as many also read and talk about due to this war in the Middle East and the closing of the Hormuz Strait, it's creating even more focus on regionalized energy production and more green electricity. So the outlook will most likely continue to be upgraded, we believe. And we also work very good in this division, as we have talked about many times, to offset raw material. This is a very automotive driven type of business, so you really need to be on top of everything and excel in everything. And this division continues to do that, both on the cost side, manufacturing, sales. We focus on India. It's an important growing market. South America is coming more back again after a couple of years more quiet. and of course the service and the aftermarket focus so with that we turn page into profit and loss and then i leave for sylvan thank you uli and hello to everybody on this call

I will be starting with adjusted EBITDA, which decreased by 8% versus Q1 2025, 1% organically, while revenue decreased by 5% and grew 4% organically. This obviously implies an adjusted EBITDA margin contraction, which primarily comes from a slightly lower gross margin, and I will come to that on the next slide. There were no items affecting comparability in the quarter. In Q1 2025, the 28 million SEC profit was related to the Mammendorf capital dame. Mammendorf was a former façade access site which we sold. The quarterly amortization of 34 million SEC was in line with our expectations and should stay stable throughout 2026. The financial net charge decreased in the quarter despite around 10 million SEC of one-off costs which related to the refinancing which we executed in the quarter. This refinancing is good news for the group and it will lead to lower margins looking forward. And if the base interest rates don't go up too strongly, we would expect a quarterly financial net charge of around 30 million SEC in the next few quarters. Taxation rate was up in the quarter from 25.5% to 27% due to changes in the country mix. uh in particular less earning in sweden uh and and we uh and that's that's due to the lower utilization in our swedish facilities so in the quarter net earnings came down by 37 million sec that is minus 20 percent and the main contributor to that decrease is isc as obviously we did not replicate the one of capital gain related to the moment of sight So now moving to gross margin and operating expenses. As I said, gross margin went slightly down from 42.1% to 41.7%. Facade access expanded its gross margin to a quarter. Wind was flat. Construction and HSPS were flight minus. And industrial basically drove most of the group margin contraction with a temporary decrease in particular due to unfavorable mix effects. One comment regarding the potential effects of the war in the Middle East. We have recently seen cost increases, including freight, energy, but those increases are the negligible impact in the quarter. Looking into the future, we will be protecting our profits the way we have done it in similar circumstances when we have faced inflationary pressures, including due to tariffs. And that will be a combination of sourcing optimization and sales price increases, if need be. As a percentage of revenue, operating expenses excluding ISE went very slightly up in the quarter, but they were down in absolute value despite some cost inflation, typically salaries. And as you know, we have taken actions to contain our cost base. In particular, we have significantly decreased cost in facet access in anticipation of the lower revenue. So we will continue to hunt waste to allow us to keep and when we can increase the allocation of expenses, fueling future growth, typically R&D, sales and marketing. Result for the period was 147 million SEC versus 184. That's a 20% decrease, 13% organically. Excluding ISE, the result was 147 million SEC versus 156 in Q1 2025. So that's a 6% increase. And once again, you see the impact of ISE in Q1 2025. EPS was 139 in the quarter versus 174. It's a 20% decrease. We had a stable number of shares adjusted for ISE and acquisition related amortization. EPS was 1.62 SEC versus 1.79 and that is a 9% decrease. Moving to operating cash flows and that was on the low level this quarter. Comparing with Q1 2025, we saw three drivers for the reduced cash flow. First, the lower earnings, primarily coming from ASE. Second, the phasing of the corporate tax payments. We made more tax payments in Q1 2026. And third, the phasing of the revenue within the quarter. leading to temporary higher accounts receivables. The revenue of March would typically be bigger than the average of January and February, but this year the share of the March revenue in the quarter was even higher than in 2025 or in the prior years. But with our continuous focus on cash flows, we are definitely confident the working capital increase of the quarter will be reversed in the next few quarters. That debt was stable at 2.4 billion SEC. And as I said earlier, we successfully refinanced the group with two, three, plus one, plus one facilities, maturing at the earliest in 2029 and at the latest in 2031, if we do exercise the two extension options. Leverage was 1.85 slightly up versus Q4 2025 due to the low earnings, once again, primarily coming from ASE. The leverage ratio remains well within our target of being below 2.5. And as I said, we will continue to focus on operating cash flows, which will contribute to future deleveraging. Our capital allocation priorities are the same. We will invest in organic profitable growth, implying a growing share of sales and marketing and R&D expenses. We continue to actively and selectively work on acquisition opportunities, which are allowed by our low leverage. And we are committed to delivering our dividend policy, which is 40 to 60% of our net earnings, knowing that, of course, this is ultimately an AGM decision. And finally, one comment on ROSI, which decreased to 23.4% excluding Goodwill versus 24.7% in Q4 2025. That was 9.5% including Goodwill versus 10% in Q4 2025. And that decrease is driven by the lower EBIT, once again impacted by ISE. And on that comment, I will be handing over to Ulle.

Thank you, Sylva. And we turn to the summary page. So, resilient performance in a challenging market, even though, as I say, we have higher ambitions, so not fully happy with the result in the quarter. But we did have a very solid book to build, important. The strong, the decentralized divisional structure that we are having are securing that we are close to our customers and making decisions where decisions should be taken. And I feel also very confident that the right things are ongoing inside each of these divisions to secure that we continue to develop on our strong new heights journey. Quick look into the divisions, Fassad Access continue to show progress and that I feel confident we will continue to do. Industrial division, strong growth has been there for a long, long time. Small dip in the salt now, but that will be back. uh construction facing a very challenging market it's difficult for in the short term to see that that will fundamentally change so i think we should expect a similar type of trend also here that they are faced facing the same market but we do have a lot of activities to both strengthen the result but also to find new growth In HSPS, we have a lot of things ongoing, a lot of turbulence, but a lot of change all for the better. But that also means that it's a little bit more uncertain and uncertainty around this business is also part of that business with a lot of dealers and the presence we have in the market. So a little bit more day to day and more difficult to predict. while the wind remains very solid and the prospects are just growing, we believe, for this division. So the focus is to continue to drive new heights, product development, sales, operational excellence, and ensuring that our people, the most important asset we have, have the support and the means to both enjoy and excel and continue to take the group to new heights. And we do have the means and we're working also very diligently with our M&A funnel and opportunities. And as I've said before also, I do expect that we will see some nice M&As every year, also this year. But it needs to be the right ones. And with that, we turn to Q&A.

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 Andreas Koski from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Just one question on the relatively weak margin in the industrials how confident are you that the margin will recover already in the in the coming quarter or in the quarters or this mix effect is that something that might persist for several quarters and that we will see somewhat lower industrial margins for the for the full year now we feel echo here

Maybe we should try to kill the Echo. Now that's gone, it seems like, so that's good. It's my line, sorry about that. No worries. We feel quite confident, absolutely, that this was some sort of, as we say very clearly, a temporary mix effect in the quarter. and that we should be back to the level we have more been used to in the next quarter or the quarter we are in. So we don't see any fundamental change in that business at all. We continue to grow. We continue to have solid gross margins on the order intake that we are having. So we feel confident.

understood thank you and then on construction and the weak demand there I mean for some time I would say you've sort of been supported maybe yeah of course it depends which quarter we look at but by a backlog and that's maybe not true only for construction but also for facilities how does the backlog look like today say compared to a year ago and will there be a lot of backlog deliveries for the rest of this year or are you now much more dependent on new orders?

Yeah, you know, the construction business, it has never been so that we have long term order book, you know, it's more six plus minus, you know, three to nine months, maybe the order book and the visibility there. So, so, We don't see a risk of dropping, you know, but if you look into the curves of our order book, the last four quarters has been now relatively stable on this level that we are seeing. And the previous four quarters, they were somewhat higher. So we are on that level now, you know, you would say. So I don't see any risk in the order book per se that you might be able to do.

Good. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Anna Woodstrom from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good morning, Ola and Sylvan. Good morning. Two questions from my side, firstly on the construction vision. So could you maybe give some details again on how the sort of ongoing margin improvement initiatives are looking and going and if you're sort of accelerating these initiatives as you said there's no clear signs of order activity picking up clearly in the near term?

No, you know these It's a good question, because this is a division which has been under strain for quite a long time. So we have done a lot on the cost side all the way, and it starts to be a little bit more limited, as I've also been saying for quite a while, until you start to destroy things that you don't want to destroy. but there's always things that we can do and we are doing things in manufacturing you know and it's to balance because things are also moving in different parts of the of the world and what we are seeing so it's nothing really fundamentally bigger type of cost initiatives it's this trimming and finding things and being very very prudent you know on on and stopping everything that is absolutely not necessary but still investing in growth Because this has also been fundamental to us. If we would have been exposed like we were five, six years ago, this business would have been in very big problems. We have many competitors and players in this market focusing on the construction market, which have either gone bankrupt or are making losses or have big issues. We still made 14% EBITDA the last two years. And this is because we are very, as I said, on the cost, but also that we are investing in the business to find new growth. And one of the areas that I talked about now, which we are talking about for a while, mass climbing work platforms, we see a lot of opportunities. We see also the funnel now start to increase, and we've also seen some concrete uh you know results of our activities so so it's paying off so it's to find this balance you know between investing and uh stop spending where we don't need to so you shouldn't expect big cost savings you know but uh i'm just highlighting that we are very uh you know um diligent uh in the management of uh of uh you know this balance of cost and investing

Perfect. That's very clear. Thank you. And then just the final one on the HSPS. Maybe a bit similar here on like how the order decrease, how you're navigating volumes ahead, but also how we should think about the quarterly improvement that's been in the margins. Should we view this as a sort of so impact from slightly better volumes?

Yeah, we had lower volumes last quarter, which also took down margins, plus we had the bonds off. The whole plan with this division is that we shouldn't drop margins too much, but we should at the same time also reset where we are more turning maybe dead spending into really active growth type of spending. So here also we try to do this thing that you take out whatever costs that you should take out that you change the things you should change to instill growth and the right focus and so forth. And that's not meaning that everything was wrong before, but it means that to get change, you need to change. So it's a target in itself to drive change. It's always been a resilient, very good, hyper-performing, profit-wise business, but it's not been growing. And that's what we're trying to achieve. So, and we couldn't do that the first two years part of the group because we felt we needed to have their arms around it very well first so that this is what we're driving now. So that means it's turmoil, it's turbulence, some people leaving unfortunately and you know, but it's multiple things, but it's all good things happening still, but painful. And then it's a market exposure that also this division is having towards the construction, which is very weak. then you have distributors partners you know the nature of this business is very short cycles so it's more book to build so it's difficult more difficult to have that type of visibility long term into that business also so so that's why i'm a little bit more cautious also on on saying or plan you know exactly what will happen but but still we are convinced we are doing the right things and we are convinced that we are also managing it relatively well

um and that you should see more of what you have been seeing okay great thank you just just one additional question from my side sorry um could you maybe give us some more color on what you saw in improving activity towards the end of the quarter was this sort of solely an impact from the weather condition in north america improving or was there other other changes as well

Sorry, I didn't understand. The question is related to HSPS or no?

No, sorry, just on a whole group per region or per sector or whatever. It sounded like January and February was much weaker in activity than a pickup in March. And I'm just wanting to clarify if that's only relating to the weather conditions in the US or if it's more broad-based.

That was the main effect that we had, but it was also a little bit broader in general. It seemed like a little bit longer Christmas break. The Chinese New Year was a little bit longer, and it was multiple effects that seemed like it was a slow-moving start in the beginning of the year. So it was a little bit wider than just the weather, even though that had, I think, a significant impact on the North American business in the first two months.

Perfect. Thank you for answering my question.

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

Yeah, thank you. So it's no questions on the screen here for now. So I'll give it some seconds to see if someone starts typing. No, we are not getting anything on the web. So that means that we round off. And with that, I would like to say thank you to all our dedicated employees, partners, and also shareholders, investors, and you listening in here and asking good questions. Thank you all. And yeah, till next time.