10/16/2025

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Good morning and a warm welcome to Investors Results Call for the third quarter 2025. I'm joined here in the studio by Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius, CFO, and Christian Sederholm, CEO. Both will soon be giving their presentations. And after that, as usual, we will be opening up for questions, both via our operator on the call and online. With that, over to you, Christian.

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Thank you, Jacob, and hello, everyone. Q3 was a strong quarter with net asset value growth of 7% with contribution from all three business areas. In a turbulent environment, our portfolio companies maintain a good balance between focusing on efficiency to protect profits here and now, and at the same time, investing appropriately for the future, both organically and by way of acquisitions. The Patricia Industries subsidiaries show solid performance with good organic growth and stable profits despite significant headwinds from a weaker US dollar. We also saw continued high portfolio activity, including investments in all three business areas. At the end of the quarter, adjusted net asset value stood at 1,028 billion Swedish. Let me briefly go through the three business areas. starting with the listed companies that represents about 70% of our portfolio. Listed companies generated a total return of 8%, well ahead of the 6RX return index at 3%. We invested in Ericsson and Atlas Copco at valuation levels that we deem attractive. We also entered into a new contract to divest shares in SEB with the aim to maintain our current ownership level as SEB continues to buy back shares. Companies continued their efforts to future-proof their businesses. For example, in the past 12 months, Atlas Copco has acquired more than 30 companies, including several in this third quarter. AstraZeneca announced a plan to invest 50 billion US dollars in the US by 2030, further strengthening its position in this key market. Wärtsilä divested its marine electrical systems business, further focusing its portfolio. After the end of the quarter, ABB announced an agreement to divest of ABB Robotics to SoftBank. We share the view of the ABB board that this would be financially attractive for ABB, while providing a good new home to ABB Robotics. On people, then, the Husqvarna Board appointed internal candidate Glenn Instone as new CEO, effective August this year. And the nomination committees are currently forming ahead of next year's AGMs. We will continue to push for higher compensation levels to secure competitiveness for the long term. Moving to Patricia Industries, then. Total return for Patricia Industries was 4%, with the largest positive contribution from multiple six quarters. Our major subsidiaries grew sales organically by 4%, with Bonability and Laboree growing significantly faster. Adjusted EBITDA declined by 2%, largely driven by a weakening US dollar year-on-year. Chris Smith was appointed new CEO of Laboree. Chris has served on the Laboree board and is a seasoned MedTech executive. Advanced Instruments completed acquisition of Nova Biomedical, which is now the name of the new combined business. Organic growth in the quarter was a negative 4% on a pro forma basis, driven by a particularly strong comparison quarter last year for the acquired business and a cyber incident that disrupted operations this quarter. Integration work is often a good start and entails, for instance, implementation of a common ERP system and alignment and investments in the organization, all with the goal to realize the combined company's full potential. The underlying qualities of the business are all in line with our investment case. For the major subsidiaries, and our 40% in 3 Scandinavia, including also the combined NOVA biomedical business from Q3, reported last 12-month sales was 68 billion Swedish, and EBITDA was just north of 17 billion. We should note here that this is all in Swedish kronor, of course, so rather sensitive to FX. Investments in EQT, our third business area, represents about 10% of our total assets. Here, in Q3, total return was 1%. Exit activity in EQT funds was high, with net cash flow to investors of 2 billion Swedish, excluding our investment in Fort Knox. We invested an additional 1.8 billion in the co-investment of Fortnox, taking the total investment close to the communicated 4.5 billion. After the quarter, John Salata was nominated new chair in EQT, taking over after Conny Jonsson from the next AGM. In this turbulent environment, I'm glad that we have a really strong platform. Investor has a clear purpose and a focused strategy. We have a portfolio of high-quality companies, a proven ownership and governance model, great people at Investor and in our companies. And importantly, we have a financial flexibility with low leverage and strong underlying cash flow from all three businesses. The current somewhat turbulent environment will offer opportunities to further strengthen the position of our companies and investor itself, building strong and sustainable businesses and ultimately driving long-term shareholder returns. With that, thank you. And let me hand over to Jenny.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Perfect. Thank you, Christian. And good morning. So let me take you through the financials for the quarter. So in Q3 2025, adjusted net asset value was 1,028 billion. And this implies an increase of 7% compared to Q2. For the quarter, all business areas contributed positively. Listed companies increased with 8%, Patricia Industries 4% and investments in EQT 1%. This implies a total return of 7% for the quarter and 8% year to date. Double-clicking on each of the business areas, starting with listed companies. Within listed companies, share price performance was mixed. Wärtsilä was a strong contributor also this quarter, followed by ABB and SEB. We saw positive share price development across several of the companies. However, Electrolux and Electrolux Professional had a tougher quarter looking at total return. Total return for listed companies portfolio was 8% compared to 6RX benchmark index of 3%. As for absolute contribution, the strong performance was mainly in companies with size and weight in our portfolio. So this implies a strong net asset value contribution from listed companies in Q3. Moving on to Patricia Industries. In Patricia Industries, we saw a 10% increase in estimated market values compared to Q2, so from 202 billion to 223 billion. Adjusting for the equity contribution from investors to Patricia Industries for the NOVA biomedical acquisition, the underlying increase is 4%. The increase was mainly explained by an expansion in valuation multiples as well as cash flow generation in the portfolio companies. However, the increase was somewhat negatively impacted by currency, so a stronger Swedish krona negatively impacting earnings in Manlycke and Permobil. Worth highlighting is that we have included the combined NOVA by medical business in the estimated market values using our previously established method. As a reminder, the method is relative valuation versus listed peers. So for each company, we have identified a set of listed peers, roughly 15 to 20 peers per company. And then for each peer group, we find an EV to EBTA multiple, where the EV, so the enterprise value, reflects the three-month value-weighted average price, as opposed to the spot price at the end of the quarter, and EBTA over the last 12 months. So backward-looking and not forward-looking. And this relative valuation metric is then applied to the EBITDA of our companies. So for Nova Biomedical, we apply the relative multiple to the LTM pro forma EBITDA of the combined business. Looking at value development across companies, we can see that the main contributors in terms of value for Q3 were the North American companies, while the Nordic companies were more flat over the quarter to some extent, way down by negative impact from FX. And now commenting on performance across the companies in Patricia Industries. First, to highlight a few positives, we saw a strong quarter for BraunAbility, in part explained by a relatively weak comparison quarter, but also due to strong demand. Labori continued to see solid growth, driven to a large extent by the Optilum urethral strictures product. In the short term, comps are getting continuously tougher as opulum urethral strictures is included in benchmark quarters. But the longer term, there's a lot of potential in both urethral strictures and the more recently launched BPH product. Nova Biomedical and Permobil had a tougher quarter. For Nova Biomedical, we are coming from a particularly tough comparison period last year for the acquired business. We also had a cyber incident this quarter impacting sales, but this was partly offset by strong organic growth in the acquiring advanced instruments business. Permobil is experiencing muted growth, which is explained by weakness in the US, but also a negative impact from a voluntary product recall. Moving on to Mönnlycke. Mönnlycke had a solid quarter with 3% organic growth, primarily driven by wound care and gloves, both growing 5% organically. This was somewhat offset by a contracting ORS. Profitability improved despite negative impact from FX and tariffs, and that is driven by positive product mix, but also lower cost on the back of the accelerating work to find efficiency improvements. And then moving on to investments in EQT. Total value change was 1% in the quarter, and that's primarily driven by EQT AB, which was up 2%. Fund investments were down 1%, and as a reminder, we report EQT fund investments with one quarter lag. So the negative 1% is based on EQT's Q2 report. For Q3 earlier this morning, EQT reported 3% in positive development in key fund investment. But again, note that this is in euros and that the correlation to our EQT fund investment is not one-to-one. On the right-hand side, we illustrate the NAS cash flow from EQT to investor, which was close to zero in the quarter. And this is despite exit proceeds, given our investment in Fortnox and acquisition of shares in EQT AB. And here we illustrate net cash flow from our investments in EQT over time. While it's quite lumpy on a quarterly basis, over the past 10 years, we have received a net cash inflow of 1.6 billion on average per year. The LTM net cash flow is a negative 2.7 billion, but that includes 800 million in acquisition of shares in EQT AB and 4.4 billion investment in Fort Knox. If we adjust for this, the net cash flow on an LTM basis is a positive 2.5 billion. Our balance sheet remains strong. Our leverage as of Q3 is 2.6%, so it remains in the lower end of our policy range despite significant investments. Onto my last slide. So over the 5, 10 and 20 year period, the investor AB Beecher has outperformed both 6RX index and our return requirement, which we highlight in orange. And this underscores the strength and the resilience of our portfolio and our strategy. The past 12 months have presented headwinds looking at the investor ratio. However, adjusted net asset value is up 6% compared to 6 or X, which has been essentially flat. And with that, I will leave the word back to Jacob.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Thank you very much, Jenny. Thank you also, Christian, for your words. We are now ready to take your questions and we will start with questions through our operator. Sharon, please. Thank you.

speaker
Sharon
Operator

To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. We will now go to your first question. One moment, please. And your first question today comes from the line of Jakub Heselvik from SEB. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

Hi, good morning, everyone. So maybe we could first start off with you mentioning that the portfolio companies are focusing on cost efficiency, while the petrochemical industries showed minus 4% reported sales growth. Can you elaborate on what you're seeing operationally and how sustainable is the 4% organic growth when we adjust for the currency effects?

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Well, I think it's a bit difficult to answer that question in terms of the entire portfolio because it varies across the companies. But if we start with the work in terms of operating efficiencies or finding cost efficiencies, the work is a focus for all of our business or subsidiaries. For this quarter, it's a lot about less hiring, also less traveling. reducing consultants. So a lot of focus on kind of external cost. But at the same time, there's a parallel work to find more structural efficiencies. But as we alluded to last quarter, the timing of the impact of such effects will vary. And I think in terms of the organic growth, how sustainable it is, I think it depends on each of the different businesses. Maybe I can start commenting on Manlycke, for example, which is the biggest subsidiary. So we saw Manlycke with 3% organic growth for this quarter. And if I focus on the biggest business area, so Wundker, which is more than 60% of the business, and even more so in terms of EBITDA, we saw a good 5% organic growth. And if we look at the year-to-date number, it's 7% organic growth, which is in line with the same number during the same period last year. And this is in a market where we see a low-to-mid single-digit underlying market growth. So we are very pleased with Manlycke continuing to take share. And that is on the back of attractive products, also really good go-to-market execution. And in parallel, focus on geographic expansion, where China is a good example. But we do recognize for all of our companies that we have fierce competition. So there will be a lot of hard work also going forward. I don't know if you want to add something, Christian.

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Comprehensive.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

Thank you. And can you walk us through the integration plan for NOVA Biomedical and how you're thinking about the leverage profile at Advanced Instruments post-acquisition? And how should we expect organic growth to continue to be negative for the upcoming two quarters, given your comments, Christian? Or is it only in Q4 that organic growth could be under pressure?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Okay, thank you. If I start with, let's say, the underlying performance of the business and then maybe we can come back to the leverage question. So as we said in Q3, we had a negative minus 4% and really two things that stood out. One was a tough comparison quarter, including some one-off orders that we didn't expect to get back basically this year. And the other thing that we bring up is the cyber incident that impacted operations, both sales and cost, during the quarter. Integration is off to a good start. And the integration work includes, of course, bringing the organizations together and aligning them, but also other things such as rolling out the common ERP system. And really what we say is that that may impact both sales and earnings near term. But importantly, the first months since we got the keys here have really confirmed the qualities of this business and focuses now on moving fast forward with integration to really realize the full potential of this combined business, creating a really strong platform for accelerated growth as we go forward. And then with regards to the leverage profile, I mean, we did use the combined business and leverage that to pay part of the proceeds here or the price for Nova Biomedical. And cash flow, as you know, is inherently volatile quarter to quarter, but we do expect to see the leveraging over time.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

Thank you. And did you mention how much the one-off cost related to the cybersecurity incident was?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

I did not, and that's intentionally so. I mean, it is hard to quantify the impact on both sales and operations, but what we said is that we're confident that it was significant enough to bring up. Okay.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

And it's all completed now and fine?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

The attack or the incident is remedied or rectified and operations are up and running since several weeks back.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

Glad to hear that. And then just a final question. Could you help us understand the property divestment from Vektura? Is there a lot of renovation depth in that property portfolio? As the price seemed to be quite low, given how large Arsenalgatan is and Tekka Udden's unique property position in Stockholm.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Well, thank you for the question. I mean, the combined property value of 1.4 billion is roughly in line with what Vixura has in the books, and that's been revalued every quarter. So it's in line with the market values that we've had. And in terms of the value in the transaction, we've also used on both sides of the transaction independent appraisal firms and also done a fairness opinion of the entire. So we have confirmed that this is the market values.

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Maybe it's fair to say that the vast majority of the value lies in Nationalsgatan 8.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

Yeah. I would just say that the Gooden is, you know, a unique property, which could be, you know, difficult to set a price on. That's where we came to as well, given it seems that the Gooden is almost worth close to zero when you take multiples on national Scotland's what's called space or office space I think in addition to that one also has to reflect that it's a land lease and also a significant renovation so it's not renovated in the same sense So there's a lot of renovation depth then, I guess, or upcoming renovation depth.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Yeah, it's like always with the properties, you know, when you haven't renovated for a while, you need to do a renovation. So a lot is maybe a bit too much, but it's of course more than Aschanalsgatan, which is newly renovated.

speaker
Jakub Heselvik
Analyst, SEB

That makes more sense. Thank you.

speaker
Sharon
Operator

Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And the question comes from the line of one moment, please. Oscar Lindstrom from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes, good morning. Can you hear me?

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Yes.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Good. My first question is on Manolik. Should we expect any further impact from tariffs or any secondary logistics disturbances? as a consequence of tariffs that have been introduced? Is that still ahead of us?

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Well, I think it's very hard to say because, as you know, tariffs also keep changing. It's moving material. So for this quarter, the impact so far that we see is less than one percentage point in terms of sales.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Negative impact on organic sales growth.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Well, no, the actual cost is less than 1%. Okay, on margin.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes, yeah. And if we move on, you mentioned in your section on Malik the weakness in the wound care market in France and Germany. I mean, first off, is this something that's sort of getting weaker or is it just sort of in a weak spot? And what's the nature of this weakness and why? Do you have any sense of how long-term that could be?

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Well, it's a very good question. It's hard to know how long-term it will be, but we do see pockets of weakness in Germany and France, and that's on the back of pressure on healthcare budgets, essentially. So there's no fundamental difference in the actual need for products that Manlike provide. So it's more about the healthcare funding, at least for the short term.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Right. Okay. And sorry, when did this weakness appear? I mean, is it something that has come now in Q3? I can't remember if you mentioned it in your Q2 report as well.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

No, I think it's a bit different in terms of both Germany and France. In France, we've seen more focus on kind of reimbursement cuts historically, which we've explained. Now we don't see the reimbursement cuts to the same extent. It's more the pressure on the health care budget. And for Germany, I mean, it's different. But I think for now, what we see in terms of the macroeconomic pressure, that kind of weakness has grown larger during this quarter.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right, thank you. My final question is on M&A. You, or investor rather, have previously talked quite a lot about acquiring sort of businesses in industrial automation, preferably sort of a larger edition. Now you've further increased your exposure to in the pharma or biome, you know, segments. What are you thinking about this sort of future direction here of privately held assets?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Thank you. Great question. And I think that if you look at the recent acquisition of Nova as an example, that's a great way for us to leverage the competence and the platform we have in advanced instruments, not the least in this case. And we're quite happy to continue expanding where we stand. That said, we also remain open for new platform investments. And then, as you point out, we have mentioned industrial technology or technology more broadly as one focus area. And we continue to be actively looking for that focus.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

And you mentioned, I think, here in your introductory presentation about the current turbulent environment. Sorry, we don't quite... Is that something which you connect to this?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Sorry, could you repeat the question? I lost you there in the middle, or we lost you.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes, sorry. In your presentation now, you mentioned that the current turbulent environment environment offered opportunities for investor with regards to acquisitions and growth as well i presume uh could you expand on that a little bit i mean are you seeing a lot of acquisition opportunities at the moment

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

We do. And I mean, as we said before, the work of finding and courting and hopefully executing on these opportunities, that's a continuous work. And oftentimes it takes a year before we identify a potential candidate and then until we close on an acquisition. So that work is ongoing and I would say the pipeline looks healthy. Then in terms of closing rate, it will inherently be volatile over the quarters. Maybe just to add one thing to your last question also, which I think is important on where we expand. It's also important when you think about our portfolio, we tend to think about it first and foremost as one portfolio. And that means that if you look at, for example, life science tools and reagents or medtech, et cetera, it's still a relatively small share of our portfolio.

speaker
Oscar Lindstrom
Analyst, Danske Bank

To really see no concentration risk in that sense. I'm happy with those answers.

speaker
Sharon
Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. We will now go to our next question. And the next question today comes from the line of Johan Sjöberg from Kepler Sovro. Please go ahead.

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

Thank you and good morning. Just continuing on the last question on the closing rate, which you mentioned, Christian, and talking a little bit about that. I mean, given the character of companies you're looking for, high growth, operating in strong growth environments, good profitability, These come with a cost, a high valuation, I assume. Do you think right now that the valuation multiples, especially in the US, on these sort of companies, and also including the industrial automation or industrial technology, is that a big obstacle right now, would you say?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Well, I think your observation is spot on. And I would say that the kind of companies that we're looking for puts us in a place where almost everything we look at comes at a somewhat rich price. It obviously helps if you do add-on acquisitions. You may not have to pay the same kind of, call it, platform premiums. And also you may have synergies that sort of help you finance and help to balance the calculation. But then again, I mean, this has been the case for many years, and I think the teams have proven that they can find and execute on really good opportunities. If you look at the investment pace over the years here, it's been quite solid. And I would say not just within Patricia, but across all three business areas.

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

Thank you. When you look at the pipeline of companies which are coming up for sale or are up for sale, first of all, you have these family companies where you have no successor who wants to take over, but also you have the private equity market. If they were quoted right, EQT was saying that the activity here or exit market is improving, etc., and Sweden has definitely seen that. Is that sort of, you shared that and also looking at that portfolio, is that sort of a good alternative for you now going forward here compared with what you've seen over the last sort of three years maybe?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Well, I think absolutely in terms of that, this one of private equities is one source of good companies and opportunities. And they come with the benefit of being, you know, um over time for for sale as well so we have done a number of those kind of transactions but also a number of of that first category mentioned where it's a a a more um sort of founder-owned business and uh sometimes a more bilateral process as well uh just looking also i want to come back to that and uh i i heard your commentary on on uh on this but

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

I'm just sort of returning to a question. You know, when you had Slavko on the call, not the last one, but sort of the one before, I think it was two or three years ago, when he mentioned that, you know, Melnick should continue to grow with a high single-digit organic growth here. And I'm sure that continues to be the ambition also. But, of course, there's a market also. I just want to hear... your thoughts upon it, not looking at the underlying markets, do you see that growth in the markets supporting that? I understand that when you have 5%, that's a good growth for Wunke, but being a spoiled analyst, we are used to higher operating organic rates in that. Maybe this is sort of, you know, clear outperforming, you know, I just want to get your feeling on what is sort of the underlying market and sort of your, how you view that growth rate, especially for the womb care. Thank you.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

I can start. Yes, well, first of all, I mean, taking it back to kind of the year to date number, that's 7%. So that's in line with kind of the high single digit and similar to the same rate last year. And the ambition remains, as you say, what we also said earlier is that the market is more low to make the single digit in underlying growth. But I think, as you also saw in Slatko's presentation, is that we see pockets of higher growth. We have a lot of attractive geographic expansion alternatives. We have China, which is a good example, where we're also establishing local presence. Also, Middle East is another area. And then in terms of the US, we also have a shift of volumes from kind of the more low-growth acute setting to the higher-growth post-acute setting, where Manlik is also establishing a strong position. So I think, you know, even though the underlying kind of acute channel growth is lower, we do see good pockets of growth that would help build to kind of the high single digit organic growth over time. But it will require a lot of hard work and also, you know, continued focus on making sure that we have an attractive offering to customers. So in terms of investing in future innovation.

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

Okay, cool. Just also coming to the cyber attack also here, and minus 4% in EQ3. Tough comps also, of course, here. I remember when Melike had this new IT system, you said that, you know, what part of this we could sort of catch up with over the coming quarters in terms of loss safety in the quarter. Is that a possibility also in NOVA now?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

I would say that you may catch up some of it, but it's never a one-to-one, really.

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

And timing is also difficult.

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

Just one final question, if I may. Three continued to perform quite well. Now, capex through sales is also coming down slightly in the quarter. Is this large investment phase over now? And it's sort of what is sort of a normal capex to sales figure in 26. You have to get a feeling, especially for, you know, this has been a reliable source of funds for you also in terms of dividends when we could sort of expect that to start up again.

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Maybe start by disappointing and saying we don't provide guidance on the capex number of the dividends. But you're right in pointing out that we've been through a couple of years, really, with rather high investments. And that has included, for example, the swap out of Huawei equipment to Ericsson equipment that followed the decision from PTS here in Sweden as an example.

speaker
Johan Sjöberg
Analyst, Kepler Sovro

All right. Great. Thank you very much.

speaker
Sharon
Operator

Thank you. There are currently no further phone questions. I will hand the call to Jakob for web questions.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Thank you very much, Sharon. Let's take questions from the web then. We can start with, in fact, three questions, I think, from Anil Sharma. I think one of them has been answered many times here. But the text is, good morning. I have three questions on NOVA Biomedical. The Q3 organic sales performance was disappointing. How much of this was due to the cyber attack and how much other factors such as the integration? Second one, the pro forma EBITDA margin is also lower than it should be. Can you explain the moving parts here? And the third, how do you expect 2026 revenues and EBITDA margins to evolve?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

I can start. And as you said, Jakob, I think in terms of the quarter, we've discussed that. And it's really hard to say exactly what is what in terms of the impact from the cyber incident. But I come back to our statement that it's significant enough for us to bring it up. And then when it comes to margins, I would say to some extent they are also related to the very high... a comparison quarter where we had a couple of really good biopharma orders. And more generally, again, we are in this phase. We got the keys here a couple of months ago. There is lots of integration work ongoing, and I've said it before, but both in terms of bringing the organizations together in a good way, but also implementing a common infrastructure across the companies, etc. There are lots of moving parts here. And therefore, we never provide guidance for 26, but we just thought it was worthwhile pointing out some of the factors that we think could impact performance in the near term.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Thank you. Then we have three separate questions from Michael Gilkins. First one, will Investor AB submit capital to the initiative of Wallenberg Investments and your subsidiaries with regards to AI infrastructure? I suppose he's referring to Spherical AI, the company.

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

So Investor AB is not an investor in the company Spherical AI. That is a joint effort and investment between Wallenberg Investment AB, which is a separate entity, just to be clear. and a number of portfolio companies who signed up to use this AI infrastructure really to, for example, train models for R&D and better efficiency in terms of managing networks for Ericsson, etc.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Second question, can you provide some insights and examples of the board work on future proofing initiatives, particularly with regards to digitalization and AI?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

I can start. It's a great question. And just to sort of state the obvious here, we do see a lot of opportunities really across the whole portfolio in terms of all our companies. And interestingly, the opportunities... are distributed across the whole value chain, so from R&D to efficient manufacturing, efficient administration, to go to market, and then ultimately, of course, also using AI to enhance the product offering or service offering for our customers, so making life better for customers. This is really high on our agenda. We drive it, as you allude to, and not the least through the boards. I mean, it's obvious that the recipe here and the focus areas are different from each or between each companies. What we try to do, in addition to driving this company by company, is to also make sure that we try and share as much as possible in between the companies, what has worked, what has not worked, etc. So as to create an open sharing culture and also some healthy peer pressure.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Good, thank you. Third one, would you as a shareholder rather hold on to the robotics division of ABB or was the valuation offered too attractive to pass up?

speaker
Christian Sederholm
CEO

Well, we share ABB or the board of ABB's view that this is financially attractive for ABB and provides a good new home for ABB Robotics. So it's good for ABB, it's good for ABB Robotics.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Thank you. And the last question I can see here, it comes from Martin Lindgren. Is the divestment of 8C, I guess, Arsenal, Skaten 8 and Tekka Uden, a preparation of a divestment of Vektura in order to keep core Wallenberg property within the Wallenberg sphere?

speaker
Jenny Arsman-Hakvinius
CFO

Yes, thank you for the question. On the contrary, the rationale for the transaction is that FAM provides a very good new home with a long-term perspective and long-term owners giving the importance of these properties to the Wallenberg ecosystem, similar to the Grand Group transaction a couple of years ago. And as for Victura, it is anchored in Victura's strategy to continue to develop innovation clusters or knowledge-intense clusters. And Victura has a really promising and attractive pipeline of projects going forward.

speaker
Jacob
Moderator

Great. I can't see any further questions, so time to conclude and wrap up. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Christian. Next scheduled call is our year-end report for 2025, which is scheduled for January 22nd next year. Until then, thank you and goodbye.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-