4/23/2024

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Good morning and welcome to this webcast and telco covering Invido's first quarter performance in 2024. My name is Fredrik Møller and I'm delighted to say that I joined Invido as president and CEO on the 10th of April. This is my 10th day in office actually, very exciting. By my side is Mr. Peter Verlien, our Group CFO and Deputy CEO and of course someone many of you are already familiar with. Let me start off by stating my appreciation to Peter for a job very well done as acting CEO during this interim phase between my predecessor Henrik Hjalmarsson and myself, taking great care of the company together with the rest of my management team and all of our co-workers across Europe. While we in this call will cover the highlights of quarter one in detail, it may be worth also taking a quick look at what InVido today is all about. We are the leading window group in Europe with rolling 12 turnover of 8.7 billion SEK and return on operating capital of 13.7%. We employ some 4,200 fantastic individuals across our 34 business units. And while the strongholds are in the Nordic region, plus the UK and Ireland, we actually cover a total of 12 European countries. A lot of the rationale behind my decision to join InVido is listed on this page. And I have to say that my early impressions of our company further strengthen my belief in this value proposition. We do enjoy a favorable exposure towards megatrends such as the green transition and a leading market position and proven track record together with our financial muscle enable us to really drive the consolidation within our industry going forward. In addition, we have a scalable e-commerce platform that broadens our offering, adding value to our customers by making it easy for them to do business with us. Let me now turn your attention to the quarter that just passed. It is no surprise to anyone, of course, that new-build activity was very low, particularly in Sweden and in Finland. We were affected through substantially lower volumes, but despite these challenging market conditions, our profitability was solid, in fact, higher than pre-pandemic levels, proving the inherent strength of our business model. In an agile fashion, we raised efficiency and reduced costs while also deliberately retaining critical competence and capacity in order to be ready for when demand returns. It's not all pitch black. On the contrary, I would say, we're starting to see positive signs on the consumer and renovation market, so far most evident in Denmark and within e-commerce. If we look at the figures again in a more normalized and seasonal context, where the first quarter is typically the weakest of the four, our top line declined by 14% versus previous year. Adjusted for acquisitions, net sales declined by 21%. Our EBITDA profit reached 91 million SEC, equaling a margin of 5.0%, down from 168 million SEC and 8.0% respectively. Our large UK acquisition last summer has added to our order intake and backlog, growing by 1% and 41% in total. Organically, however, the same parameters were minus 9% and minus 13%. Return on operating capital decreased from 17.6% to 13.7%, and our net debt in relation to EBITDA went up from 0.7 times to 1.4 times, or 1.1 times if not applying IFRS 16 accounting. Sustainability remained high on our group agenda, and we yet again harvested on previous efforts, also this quarter, as shown in our absolute figures. Relatively speaking, some KPIs were naturally hampered when shown as a portion of lower volumes. Seeing our accident and sick leave related figures improving brings a big smile to my face, as this is very, very important to me and to the rest of the group. And so is this. After the quarter ended, we obtained formal approval of our climate targets from the Science-Based Target Initiative. This is an important milestone for us and a seal of us contributing to a better planet by doing what we do best, namely developing and launching even more energy-efficient products and solutions. one key pillar for a long-term success is innovation and it was therefore extra pleasing to note quite a few product launches throughout q1 further solidifying our market leadership and our strategic position towards improved indoor climate and energy efficiency what better way for elite funster for example to celebrate its centenary than by launching its best windows ever in the elite 100 series And Diplomat Doors, they did a collab with Assa Abloh's Yale brand to launch Diplo Smart. And last but not least, Hayom launched a new exciting platform for sliding doors. Now it's time to dig deeper into our Q1 numbers, and I therefore hand over to you, Peter.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Thank you so much for that, Fredrik. I'll start with this page. This page is showing the income statement for Q1. To the left, we can see 2024. Then we can see 2023. And to the right, we can see the latest 12 months. Sales is down by 14%. Organically, it's down by 21%, meaning we have lost $495 million in sales compared to last year per four months. The gross margin was slightly down from 23.4% to 22.5%, a decline of 0.9% units. due to the volume decline. NVIDIA has a large seasonality in the business, where the Q1 is the lowest quarter for NVIDIA. The season starts in Q2. To be able to increase capacity, as well as sales in Q2, we must balance the capacity level in Q1 and not reduce the capacity too much to handle the growth in Q2. Thereby, in Q1 this year, with a sales decline, a volume decline, but more than 20%, We have not been able to fully compensate and defend the gross margin in the quarter as we did in 2023. Operating EBITDA declined to 91 million compared to 168 million last year. Operating EBITDA margin was 5% compared to 8% last year. In the quarter this year, InVida had a restructuring cost of 7 million, mainly related to the one factory project in Vetlanda in Sweden. The profit of the tax declined from 112 to 28, and the earnings per share from 190 to 0.37. Looking at the latest 12 months, sales have declined to 8.7 billion. Nvidia has, during the latest 12 months, lost more than 20% in volume. I said this before, I said this in February when I presented the Q4 report. I've been here for 26 years. And I've never seen such a decline during my 26 years within this business. And that is still valid for the Q1. So we have lost more than 20% of sales during the last 12 months, and still we can deliver an operating beta margin of 10.9%. This page is showing the sales development for Q1 as well as the order intake development for Q1 the year 2019 until 2024. To the left you can see the sales development and to the right we can see the order intake development. We also marked the latest acquisition Saidi that is the golden color in the blue stables for 2024. Sales is down by 40 percent compared to last year organically down by 21 percent If we compare to a perform of last year, that means a sales decline of 495 million. We can see growth in e-commerce. E-commerce has been growing by 8%. E-commerce is selling only to the consumer markets, mainly to the renovation markets. We have industry or new build sales in Sweden, and we have it in Finland. Sweden is reported under Scandinavia, and in Scandinavia, we can see a sales decline in the quarter of 25% compared to last year. Finland is reported under East, and in Eastern Europe, we can see a sales decline of 44% compared to last year. Western Europe, we have an increase in sales of 90% compared to last year. Organically, it's down by 1% compared to last year. The order intake development can be seen to the right on this page. The order intake is plus 1% compared to last year, including SIDI. If we exclude SIDI, the order intake is down by 9%. Once again, we can see growth within the e-commerce business selling to the consumer market. They have a growth of 12%. Grenada has a decline of 12%. Eastern Europe is down by 26%. And in Western Europe, we have a growth of 130%, of course, impacted by Saudi group. Excluding Saudi, we still have a positive audit tech development compared to last year due to the development in Ireland. So the decline of 9% excluding Saudi is mainly related to the industry markets, the new built markets. Whereas we can see positive development in the consumer market when it comes to e-commerce, We can also see a positive growth, small growth in Denmark, and we see less decline compared to industry markets in Sweden and in Finland when looking at the consumer sales. This page is showing the order backlog end of each quarter from Q1 2020 until Q1 2024. Once again, we have separated the Saidi because Saidi has a different business model compared to the rest of the group. Saidi, they are selling to the social housing in Scotland, and they have a quite a large order backlog compared to the rest of the group. Saidi has an order backlog, more or less one year of sales, whereas the rest of the group, when we're selling to consumer markets, we have order backlog just a couple of weeks ahead of us. The total order backlog compared to last year is plus 41%. Excluding Saudi, it's down by 13%. So the difference excluding Saudi is less now compared to previous quarters, because in the Q1, sales declined by 21% organically, whereas the order intake was only down by 9%. This page is showing operating a beta and operating a beta margin for Q1 from 2019 until 2024. As I said before, Individa has a high seasonality, and the Q1 is always the lowest quarter with the lowest profitability. Before the pandemic, the margin was around 3 to 4%. On this page, you can see that the margin 2019-2020 were 3.1 and 3.3%. Then during the pandemic, the seasonality was reduced because of the high order intake in autumn. We had a high order intake in 2020, 2022, and that impacted the sales and deliveries in the beginning of the year, 2021 until 2023. So we had a positive impact, especially for the Q1 during the pandemic. And now in 2024, we don't have that impact anymore. And the margin has been declined. It's more normal, still above the level pre-pandemic. 5% this year compared to the level of 3% to 4% pre-pandemic. And 2019 to 2020 were 3.1 and 3.3. have a financial target and related return operating capital return operating capital is defined as a beta rolling 12 months in percentage of the average operating capital and the average operating capital is the average latest four quarters the target is 15 percent and due to the lower results due to the lower volumes and The return on operating capital has declined in the quarter. It's now down to 13.7%, below the target and still above the level of the pre-pandemic. The operating capital has increased during the last four quarters, and the main reason is the acquisition of Saidi in Scotland, which was made in July 2023. This page is showing the net depth and the net depth, including as well, excluding IPR16 and as well as the net depth in relation to operating EBTA, including as well as excluding IPR16. We have also high seasonality when it comes to our net depth due to the working capital. The working capital is always as low as in December, and then it starts to increase in Q1. And this has also been impacted on the reality for this year. The net debt has increased in Q1, which is normal for the business. However, the increase this year was a little bit higher compared to last year due to the pandemic. We had higher and better sales in Q1 last year compared to this year. Still, the net WBTA is still giving us a headroom for growth. It was 1.4, including RFIR 16. And excluding RFIR 16, we are on 1.1. Compared to last year, we were on 0.7, including RFIR 16. If you then look at our different business area, starting with Scandinavia, In Scandinavia, we have lower volumes in a challenging market, especially the new-build market. We have continued low activity in the market, the new-build market in Sweden. And as I said before, we see an increased demand notice amongst consumers in Denmark. We defended our gross margin. It was down by 0.3 percent units, even though sales declined by 24 percent from 1 billion 73 to 860 million and a quarter. Operating in beta went down from 116 down to 60, and the operating beta margin went from 10.8 to 7.4. The order intake declined by 12%, and the backlog end of the quarter is down by 14% compared to last year. In Eastern Europe, we are facing historically low activity in the new-build market in Finland. We have to go back to 1940 to see the same activities. We have taken efficiency measures and we have made cost savings while retaining competence and capacity for the peak season. If we cut down too much in Q1, then we cannot increase sales when the season starts in Q2. Sales is down by 43% compared to last year, from 565 million to 321 million. The operating EBITDA went from a positive of 38 million to a loss of 15 million. The margin went from 6.8 positive to a minus of 4.8. The order intake declined by 26%, and the backlog end of the quarter is down by 28% compared to last year. In e-commerce, we can see a growth and improved margin. E-commerce is selling to the consumer market, so we can see a growth in the consumer-oriented online sales. Sales is plus 8% in a quarter from $236 million to $255 million. The operating EBITDA went from $4 million last year to $11 million. The margin went from 1.5% to 4.2%. The order intake is also growing. It's plus 12%. And the backlog end of the quarter is more or less the same as last year. The last but not least, Western Europe. In Western Europe, we have, of course, SIDI Group, and SIDI Group has a large impact on the performance of Western Europe. However, SIDI Group has been a good contribution to NVIDIA and has delivered well despite the challenging market. And SIDI is also less cycle than the other business units. and has a good contribution to the results and margins in Q1 for Western Europe. The other businesses in the UK have a negative impact affected by low demand and the consumer market. The total sales is plus 90% from 223 million to 424 million. If we compare the sales to a performer last year, sales is down by 1% compared to last year. Operating in beta from 19 million to 43 million. The operating beta margin has been improved from 8.7 to 10.2. The order intake is plus 130% in total. Excluding Saudi, we still have positive order intake compared to last year, mainly due to the performance of Ireland. And the order backlog end of the quarter is up compared to last year from 230 million to 1,124,000,000. mainly due to Saudi. However, excluding Saudi, we still have a higher order backlog end of March compared to last year. I now hand over back to Fredrik to make a short summary and the outlook.

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Thank you, Peter. To sum up then, we can conclude that Indido showed resilience in a quarter where markets continue to be challenging, particularly in the new build sector and in Sweden and Finland. But there are definitely positive signs on the horizon in Q1 exemplified by consumers in Ecom and in Denmark and longer term by our positioning towards EU's green transition, as well as our opportunity to further grow in Europe organically and via acquisitions. And before we open up for Q&A, we would like to market both our upcoming events, including our AGM in Malmö on May 16, as well as our annual and sustainability reports that are hot off the presses. There's lots of useful information in there. And now, Peter and I would be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

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 £6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yes, hi, good morning. Can you hear me?

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Yes, hello, Rasmus. Welcome.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Wonderful. It's always good to ask that when you ask the first question. Anyways, so, Fredrik, now after 10 days, are you largely happy with what you see or do you think that there are things that you want to do differently or what's your first impressions here?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

as a relevant question of course rasmus uh i've had first of all a very warm welcome from everybody uh i've had high expectations on the in video and that was sort of a lot of the rationale for me joining the company but i must say first impressions are very very positive high quality of my group management team of course also the board of directors and everybody else in the organization i like the culture I like the fact that we are very well positioned strategically with our leading positions, but also to continue to pursue profitable growth across Europe going forward. It's been a challenging first quarter, but I think it's been managed really, really well by the company, I must say. So overall, very positive impressions so far. But again, it's 10 days into the office. mean i think it's fresh to have actually an outside in perspective coming into the company and someone else looking at the company in a somewhat different way and i intend of course to first of all visit as many sites as possible and get to know the people and get to know the the business as such and in the industry and then In parallel, try to, I don't know, revise, update the strategy together with my group management team and our board of directors. But I don't foresee any drastic changes. I guess the old saying of, if it ain't broken, don't fix it, is very valid in this case. NVIDIA is in a very good place, and that makes it easier for me to take it to the next level as well.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thanks. Thanks. I had some questions. When you think about the outlook as you look into a crystal ball, what do you think about consumer sales? Do you think it could be picking up in the second half of the year? Or how do you see that playing out?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

It's literally the million dollar question, isn't it? If I start, then maybe Peter can add on to it. Again, I'm fairly new to this, but uh it's we've had a we've had a good start to q2 still there's a lot of uncertainty out there there's a lot of psychology i think uh it seems the capital and the overall ambition is there but a lot of decision makers are sidelined and don't really dare to push the button yet we've also had a cold winter and and uh and of course easter this year ended up in q1 rather than q2 So that has all affected the figures a bit. But again, for me as an outsider, I don't know. I think there's a psychology around, again, the interest rates. And we see to some extent that in the consumer market in Denmark, which is a little bit ahead of Sweden and Finland so far, with lower inflation and lower interest rates. And there we have an uptick in demand on the consumer side. Theoretically, that could and should happen in the other markets as well, but who knows? It's a very, very uncertain market. A new build is, to some extent, a different ballgame, where again, at the moment, we have been looking at, as Peter mentioned, figures. You have to go back to the 90s in Sweden and even the 40s in Finland to look at something similar. Theoretically, there should be an overhang in the market where even if we go back to normalized quote unquote levels, that should have a positive impact on demand, of course. And I don't know, one scenario could, of course, be already in a year or two's time where you have substantially higher demand and theoretically, you know, almost difficulties in the supply chain to keep up. But again, the business model of Indido and the performance track record that we have that we can handle both the upticks and the downticks bodes very well, I must say. It gives me comfort. Peter, I don't know if you want to add to what I just said.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

No, as you're saying, I think the first out is the Danish consumers. There we can see some positive trends. And looking at the other markets, And we are in belief as well as a hope that it can be a turnaround or can reach a button in Q2 and beginning of second half of this year. I think Sweden will be first out. It will take a little longer time when it comes to Finland and also when it comes to Norway. And then the UK market, the consumer market is still challenging, however, there we have two companies who have gone into bankruptcy in the UK and another company also in difficult situations. So there are some opportunities in the UK market even though the market is a bit negative we can see some opportunities in the UK market.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

And how are your pricing developing and your raw materials in this quarter?

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

In this quarter, the prices have been quite stable. There are some more competition right now, the price competition. We have seen some price decreases on the market. We have been able to more or less keep our sales prices. However, there is a pressure on the sales prices. On the positive side, we see some decline when it comes to raw materials. We see that the glass prices have been reduced. But of course, it's also an uncertainty. We also see now that aluminium prices are going up. But in total, we have lower prices right now this year compared to last year.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

And just a final question. If we start to see a pickup in, say, housing starts or new construction, what is the timing until that impacts you?

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

It depends on the size of the building, but normally we are not first in the project, but we're not last. We are a little bit in the middle, just before the middle. So you start with the ground, then you do the walls and your roof. Then you try to close the building as soon as possible by putting in the windows so you can water secure the building. So we are in the first phase, end of the first phase of the building construction. So if it's construction of one year, then we are in months four or five.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

OK. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Sofia Soling from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

Hi. Yes, Sofia here from Carnegie. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is related to Eastern Europe. Could you give us some more detail on the significant decline in net sales? Would you say that it's more due to the lower order backlog per Q4 last year or more related to the decline in order intake during the quarter?

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Hello, Sophia. It's both, actually, I would like to say, but mainly it's due to the low order backlog that we have end of December. We started the quarter with a low backlog compared to last year, and then the order intake is down by 26%, and that has, of course, impacted some of the sales in the quarter, especially the order intake was quite low in the beginning of the year in January, and that impacted sales in March.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

main impact is of course the backlog end of the quarter and beginning of the quarter that was so much lower all right and also now you mentioned a little bit about the trend during the quarter could you give us some more details on the order intake trend or activity during the quarter in q1 in the other business areas as well

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

In Eastern Europe, it was more negative in the beginning of the quarter compared to last year and less negative end of the quarter compared to last year. The rest of the group has been January, February was slightly down and then was more down in March compared to last year. Then of course, we have to remember looking at March, we have an Eastern impact. when compared to last year, especially in that impact, especially the consumer sales.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Thank you. And I noticed the high margin in Western Europe. Is this something that you expect will be a sustainable margin here? And if you could give the main reason for this improvement, if it's only or mainly a contribution from the CIDI group.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Saidi has a good contribution to the money improvement. We see some money improvement in the other areas as well. Saidi is the main contributor. Saidi has a very solid order backlog. It has a good order intake and a solid market and doing very well on a challenging market. We see that that's sustainable for the future as well. Considering the order backlog is more than full for this year. That is more talking about 2025 and then 2024 right now.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Okay. And could you give the main reason for the strong demand in Ireland?

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Ireland is a little bit cyclical in that sense that in Ireland we are selling both to consumers and 50% is to larger projects in Ireland. And we just managed to close some larger projects this year. We were not able to do in the beginning of last year. So we still see a stable market in Ireland. We don't see a larger increase or decline in the market. We foresee a stable market in Ireland. And we're just able to take some larger orders this year.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. And my last question is about M&A. Could you give us some more

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

and details around your pipeline and if you expect to do any closer in the short term or medium term yeah first of all i i must say again i'm only 10 days into my role here but i'm i'm genuinely impressed by also how we work with m&a and we have a very structured process and i think we have a good reputation in the market meaning that privately held companies, private owners are typically coming knocking on our door, literally, if they are considering some form of divestment. So that means we have a decent funnel, I think, of potential targets. We are under no stress. We don't have to do deals just because of that. We can cherry-pick a little bit, and I think we have, again, a positive track record here of finding the right ones and integrating them in a very good way. And again, Saidi, the large acquisition we did last summer is a very good example of that. It's one of my priorities now to, of course, be a little bit of a catalyst on the discussions that we have already ongoing. First of all, I need to understand the business a bit better to be reasonably intelligent when I have these discussions with potential sellers but it is important for me to join forces with the rest of the team including Peter to build these relationships and make sure that we take the right ones to the finish line sooner rather than later then as everybody knows it's not something you can force either the process takes its time and that's fine at the moment of course it's a bit of a disequilibrium in the market in the sense that sellers are typically looking at selling using you know normalized multiples whereas we as buyers could of course consider somewhat lower multiples in the current market context but at the same time if it's a high quality business that we're looking at then we then we will pay a high quality price as well of And I think the model that we have used in the past, where we take a majority stake and then work together with the existing owners over time to develop even more value, that has been super successful. And that is something we can lean against now also for the future deals. So yeah, it's difficult to respond specifically to your question, Sofia. We have a funnel and we're working hard to to close a couple of those cases. Some are smaller, some are bigger. And generally, of course, it will be, I think we have produced a solid quarter and we were well positioned to drive consolidation here. There are many other players across Europe that are having much, much tougher times than we are. We have the financial muscle And we are voting well in this market complex. So of course, there should theoretically be opportunities coming our way as well over the next few weeks and months. So we will work with those, of course.

speaker
Sofia Soling
Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Okay. Thank you both.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you, Sofia.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Until we get some more questions on the telephone, I will read some questions that we received through the web page. And the first question is coming from Oskar Bretting at Garn Invest. And the question is that many of your competitors have declared bankruptcy due to the market climates. Will you seize this moment to acquire more companies at fair low value actions and evaluations?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Yeah, I can start by responding to that one. I think it's relatively related to the response I gave to Sofia's question just a minute ago. We're typically not looking for companies that are in financial distress. I don't think we have to. Rather, we are looking for high quality assets that add to our offering or add to our geographical That's typically what we've been doing in the past. It could be in existing markets, but it could also be totally new geographic markets for us. There are still a couple of white spots on the European map for Envido. But theoretically, yes, there should, as I mentioned, be cases coming our way that we can at least review and analyze and form an opinion about. And theoretically, again, multiples should go down a bit. Again, we follow the procedures and the processes we have internally, and I'm absolutely confident that they will be successful also going forward.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Second question is coming from LBVS management. And the question is, could you provide some color on your aluminum sourcing? How dependent are you on North Keito? Is Polish based Keito a relevant supplier? Could you more broadly explain your aluminum sourcing strategy? Is it fully centralized? Do you hedge? Is it a tail or headwind for 2024? I can take that question. In general, aluminum is of course important for us. It's an important material, but it's not the most important material. The most important material for us is glass. Thereafter comes wood, and then comes aluminum. Aluminium, as well as many of our larger materials, are centralized. We make central procurements when it comes to aluminum. Yes, we do hedge, depending from company to company and the volumes, but we have some hedging. We are dependent on several of our suppliers. I cannot really say if it relates to this Polish supplier. Of course, the Armenian prices have been quite stable. Looking at the last week, we can see an increase, and that will of course have an impact for us in the future. Next question is coming from Gaunder Capital in Switzerland. What is your assessment of the operating EBITDA margin for the future? Is it estimated to be 5% in 2025? like in 2024, or higher or lower. In general, we're not guiding when it comes to operating a beta or the margin for the future. We are today in a 10.9% operating a beta margin. We have during the five, six quarters, and especially the latest four quarters, facing a very challenging market with a volume decline of more than 20%, and we'll be able to more or less defend or operating a bit of money now and it's today on 10.9 percent so nevertheless how the future will look if the market goes up or market goes down we will react and and and be flexible and adjust to the to the future market situation yeah just to build on that again we have said many times now that we see a more seasonalized pattern a more normalized pattern across our business

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

And in that sense, also the first quarter is typically the weakest quarter. So I think one should bear that in mind.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Next question is coming from Albin at Nordea. The e-commerce is positive year on year on all numbers and you believe that you are gaining market share. What is the reason behind the belief that you are gaining market shares? What would you say is the normalized full year beta margin for e-commerce and how is the M&A outlook for e-commerce especially? I can take that. Yes, we are gaining market shares. We can see on different, we have a different way to calculate and look at our competitors and on their performance. And we also see some of the companies have been reported before the report last year, as well as the beginning of this year. And we can see that we have increased our sales, whereas some of the competitors have actually lower sales. So yes, we have been able to improve our market shares. The reason for that is I think that in general we are doing well because we own the full value chain. We are not only selling Windows on the e-commerce platform, we're also producing the Windows. We're also taking care of the logistics. So we have the full value chain when it comes to e-commerce platforms and thereby we can be more efficient and thereby we can also gain some market shares. When looking at the normalized beta margin, that's a little bit hard and tricky to say. And before the pandemic, the margin was around 10 to 12%. And during the pandemic, the margin increased quite rapidly because the market increased quite rapidly. And the only way to lower the order intake was actually to increase prices. And that was all over the market. So all competitors, all suppliers and e-commerce gain improved the profitability during the pandemic. And then after the pandemic, there has been quite tough price fights on the market, and thereby the margin has been decreased. But it's very hard to say today what is the normalized EBITDA margin. I think it's higher than what we are rolling on today, but it will not be the same level as it was during the pandemic. Then we have a question regarding to Ireland and UK. How will you escalate in leaders position in England and Ireland now that some of your competitors are going to bankruptcy over there?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Yeah, it's something we touched upon a little bit. We note that and we can then thankfully say that we are typically performing better with a bright outlook as well. Again, We don't want to pick up assets in financial distress. We will review each potential case on a case-by-case basis and sort of take it from there. So it's difficult right now to be more specific than that. But of course, UK and Ireland are markets that we like long-term and that we will look into expanding our footprint further in just as some of the other markets that we are in and not in other parts of Europe.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

And we can say that we have taken some new customers in the UK and there were customers to the companies that went to bankruptcy. So we have increased the number of our customers and thereby also some positive in terms of order intake in the UK. Then Next question is from Hannes Banken, Josefin Johansson. She has two questions. The first question, do you find that clients are aware of the new EU requirements on the energy performance and non-residential buildings, or is that still not fully understood?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

That's a good question. This is complex material, but for us generally very positive material. And I think there is always a bit of a need of education here. But generally, I would say, with all due respect for me being very new to this business, generally, I would say that there is quite a lot of understanding. And in some cases, probably a little bit of stress that people are typically rather far away from the targets that are being set and that people need to adhere to. But again, for us, it's overall good news. We do as best as we can in clarifying our position vis-à-vis this green transition, creating opportunities for us in many dimensions. So there is an element of education still, I would say.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Second question from Josefin is, congratulations on the validated science-based targets. What are the key steps to achieve these targets, in your opinion?

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Yeah, it's a great milestone for us, and there's a lot of hard work behind this achievement. And the bad news, I guess, is that now is when the work really starts. But first we celebrate this milestone, and then we continue out in our 34 business units to continue with training, continue with target setting, and continue linking personal and entity objectives to these targets as well. And we will measure and follow up this on a regular basis. Again, there's a very well-functioning, I don't know, call it scorecard setup within InVido that I'm already appreciating to see. And as you can see, many of the numbers that we are producing in Q1 are definitely going in the right direction. So our hard efforts are paying off. This is a huge area. It's sustainability as such. And many of the sub components of sustainability are huge areas. So it's a matter of pinpointing the right ones as well to make sure that we get quality and not just quantity in our performance. And I think most likely that will be part of the overall strategy revisit as well that we'll do within the group management team over the next couple of months.

speaker
Peter Verlien
Group CFO and Deputy CEO

Next question is, once again, from LBV Asset Management. Can you provide some context of any Easter effect in Q1 on demand and how April is shaping up? We have, of course, an Easter impact, and that, especially when it comes to the order take of consumers, has a negative impact looking at Easter. And that will then, of course, have a positive impact when it now comes into April. April, we're only three weeks into April. So far, you can see some positive signs and some positive developments compared to Q1, but still too early to say how the Q2 will be. And then the last question is from Azure. Is there any thoughts of share buyback? And we don't have any mandate today. And the board has not asked for any mandates at the annual meeting in May. So the answer for that question is no. No share buybacks. Our strategy and our target is to grow the business and to get to the target of 20 billion 2030. And we are going to use our cash for acquisitions.

speaker
Fredrik Møller
President and CEO

Okay, that was the last question. Again, thank you, Peter, and thank you, everyone, for listening in and asking very relevant questions. I hope you got a good response to them. So, by that, we say thank you and goodbye.

Disclaimer

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