Beijer Alma AB (publ)

Good morning and welcome and thanks for calling in. Christopher Norberg here together with Joel. So we'll go over some slide and explain a little bit how we look at the first quarter of the year. And then of course, we'll have some Q&A to wrap it up. So maybe we'll get started right away. So if you summarize this quarter, I would say stable is a very good word. As you all know, Q4 and Q1 for us are somewhat smaller quarter as we're just now starting ramping up for the summer season in most of our key countries around. Europe and the US. But in general, we had a stable development in most of our markets across the world. Our organic growth for the quarter was flat. We had some effects of weather, if you remember, in the US, closing down branches three, four days in January. We had some extreme calms in some acquired companies, etc. So underlying positive growth in Q1. Acquisition added 3%. We had a fairly steep headwind on the currency in Q1 and hopefully will improve here as we roll over to Q2. On the margins, good development across all regions. Margins up in the US, margins up in APAC and then a little bit down in EMEA. We'll come into that in there, but in total numbers in line with last year. Cash flow continues to be positive. So we continue to work very active with our cash flow position. We are building inventory here in Q1 and we'll continue to do that here in the beginning of Q2 to ramp up for the summer season, of course. But in general, very good control of the cash flow. We had one acquisition. Closing in Q1, we'll come back and address a little bit on the pipeline that's coming up here in Q2 and the rest of the year. And also worth calling out our green OEM, SM Frigom Fenergy, continue to have very, very strong order intake and have record backlogs moving into Q2 for the rest of the year. So very positive on the OEM side, on the green OEM side of the business. Moving on to the next slide that highlights in a different segment as related to a green OEM. Continues to do very well and order books are increasing so we're positive as we ramp that business up for the rest of the year. And especially worth mentioning is the Fenergy at a record order intake quarter here with over 300 million sake of orders in different segments. It's very encouraging and a lot of activities. We also mentioned here the first time in a couple of years, good pre-season for HVAC in France. It's a big market for us in there. And then the rest of, if you look at the segment, fairly stable, commercial refrigeration, 1%, OEM up five, but with good order books. And HVAC, if you adjust a little bit for the US, would also be slightly positive for the first quarter. So in general, a good start, stable start to the year. If you then move in a little bit to Mea, I have touched on some of these points. Just trying to break it down a little bit. I would say positive growth in most of our regions. Worth calling out, as we said, is the UK. And then, as I mentioned, a nice start on the pre-season for HVAC in France for the first time in a couple of years. We do have some headwind on comps in acquired companies and Eastern Europe that was extremely strong in the beginning of the year last year. So all in all, a fairly stable quarter and also a smaller quarter for us in Q1 as we're starting now to ramp up for the season. Green OEM continued to be strong, as we said, reported. Margin a little bit diluted by acquisition. And then we had some currency effects last year. So in general, a stable quarter on the margin as well. Then moving into APAC. APAC continues to develop well. Plus 3% organic side compared to a good quarter start to the year. They're just phasing out their high season, moving in a little bit more to not winter, but the summer season is over. So they had a good summer season across the board and especially worth calling out here. It's very good development in the largest market in APEC in Australia. They continue to take market share and develop in a very good direction. Also good activities on the OEM side and a lot of activity in Southeast Asia on that with good order line and pipeline from our businesses across the globe. A lot of activities, investment from our side on OEM and refrigeration in Southeast Asia is also proving to be the right strategy. If you look at the margin and development they had over the last couple of years, we're extremely proud of the team over there that does an amazing job on improving margin in their underlying business, but also moving into segments and parts and supply in a larger way to drive a positive product mix. So a little bit copying and working with the same type of model we have in the US on the HVAC side. A more ducted solution, more parts and supply, so very positive. for them and how they're working with their margin side. So a good quarter in APEC based on a lot of good quarters lately in that region. Then you move over to North America, an active quarter, as we said, I think on last quarterly call, we had quite some extreme weather and being a, branch-based business as we are. When you close down all our branches, it's tough to do any sales. So after a tough January with three or four days closing of our branches, we had a positive development in February and positive in March. So all in all, a continued good execution from our US team, not only on the sales side, but also on the margin side. You can see also very strong margin development in the us driven by a lot of strategic initiatives that we are driving and continue to drive despite dilution from the acquisitions that we did at the end of the last year continue to open branches just open one the first new branch in alabama i think in 20 years so i'm excited for that branch and we'll continue to do that for for for the rest of the year And also nice start to acquisitions that we did close in the end of last year. And we do see continue to see that there's no big change in our view on the markets in the US. As you all know, we are heavy on repair that continues to be active. So also looking forward for that market to start strengthening. But right now it's a stable market for us with good margins. We continue to invest in branches. We invest in our private label initiatives. And we also continue to have a very strong pipeline on acquisitions in the U.S. that we're pretty sure is going to start executing here in the near term. So all in all, I would say a very solid quarter in North America. Then a little bit on the financial, won't spend too much time on this. We went over the quarter here, you see the trends here. Of course, currency is a big headwind right now, but that's probably going to ease up a little bit as we move forward. And then the stable organic growth on the total reported level. Same on the margin, I would say solid Q1. And as you see, if you look at that, the Q2, Q3, of course, much bigger quarters for us. So I think we're in good position, good inventory position, good cash flow, stable margins across the globe to continue and have a nice development here as we move into Q2 and Q3 for us. all in all i think this is my last slide joel uh i think i said this time a couple of times but i think we'll summarize it as a stable quarter to start off the year and we will we look forward to ramping up here in for the season and moving into a q2 and q3 uh for vera so with that we'll take over

All right, thank you, Christopher. Good morning, everyone. Covered most here, but as always, looking at starting at EBIT, excluding items affecting comparability of 746 million in the quarter, which is down 4% compared to last year. We are, as said, significantly impacted by FX and on a currency-neutral basis, our Q1 EBIT is up 3%. Our net financials continues to develop very well. We have had strong cash flow generation for a number of quarters now, and net financials come in at 109 million here, which is slightly more than 20 million below last year, driven by a combination of lower rates and FX movements. On a comparable basis, interest costs are roughly 10 million lower in the quarter compared to last year. Tax side, relatively uneventful, 156 million in the quarter. Effective tax rate of 25% in line with last year. So all in all, we report a net profit, which is also in line with last year. And if you adjust for FTX, we are up 5%. So moving over to EPS, clearly in the quarter 0.94, same level as last year. But then again, the FX headwind. So adjusting for that, you have a net profit or EPS, which is up 5%. A little bit on the cash flow. As you know, Q1 is a seasonally weaker cash flow quarter due to build up of working capital, as Christopher mentioned before, ahead of the primary selling season. We did, however, continue to deliver a solid operational cash flow in Q1 of 385 million. And the positive cash flow trend continues, which is also here. visible on the next slide where we have now 11 consecutive quarters of stable and good cash flow. Obviously, we are in the middle of our journey on improving our capital efficiency. So looking forward to continue to deliver strong cash flow here. Just moving over to leverage, leverage ratio in the quarter moved up slightly sequentially to 1.9, same level in all material aspects as last year, which means that we continue to have a strong balance sheet and that together with our cash flow generation abilities, we feel that we have a very strong pipeline and ability to execute. With that, I hand back over to Christopher.

All right, so just to wrap up a little bit, the comments on Q1. Stable across the board on sales. I would say good margins starting off the year. As Joel said, solid cash flow despite building inventory for the season. uh and then a small acquisition closed out in the air and then of course mention also record books in our order books in our oem business uh we will look forward to it for the rest of the year i think on a long term things uh looks good for us a lot of activities in in our segment uh on the sustainability electrification regulation continues to be positive and active in our regions. Good balance sheet for future expansion of our business. And also, as we said before, good acquisition pipeline. We'll have an active here first half of the year and we'll continue to have an active, I would say, second half of the year on the acquisition side as well. So I would say solid start to the year and also now Looking forward to going into more active season for our company and for us. I think with that, we'll wrap up the first part of the call and then we're open for any questions from people on the call.