Inwido AB (publ)

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to this webcast and telephone conference covering InVido's fourth quarter and full year performance of 2024. My name is Fredrik Möller, president and CEO of InVido, and I'm joined on this call by Peter Verlin, our group's CFO and deputy CEO. I'm in Malmö today and Peter is in Stockholm, but I'm sure we will work out the logistics just fine. We will start off with a run through of the highlights from the quarter and year respectively, followed by a more in-depth review of group and business area financials before rounding off with summary conclusions and outlook and Q&A. As usual, this presentation material is already available on InVido's website. While you may already be familiar with InVido, it's always worth underlining the unique features of our group, creating healthy shareholder value since more than two decades, of which one in the public domain, we are Europe's leading window group consisting of 35 business units across 12 countries and enjoying a number one position in the Nordics and number two in the UK. Our strong brands are synonymous with genuine craftsmanship and high quality, our windows and doors improve quality of life by, for example, being energy efficient, safe and aesthetically appealing. Importantly, we are making solid progress on our exciting growth journey towards becoming a 20 billion SEC company by year 2030. InVido is playing a strong financial performance and strengthening our strategic position for what's to come, namely the normalization of demand, the green transition across Europe and the synergistic acquisitions that we are working on. InVido finished the year in style. After seven long quarters, we are now back on the growth track, reporting solid sales growth in both total and organic terms and across all of our four business areas. On the same theme, our order intake kept the positive momentum from last spring, growing for the third consecutive quarter and in a major way, organically plus 19%, meaning we ended up with a strong backlog that, since it grew by 29%, gives us confidence for the coming months and quarters. Profitability wise, I can proudly conclude that we managed to maintain a healthy level overall of .2% operating a beta margin, despite market conditions varying quite a bit between our 35 entities and not all stars being aligned at the same time. Naturally, some of the BUs, particularly in Finland, where we did really well in Q4 2023, now lack the volume required to fully absorb their fixed cost base and are fighting daily with the price pressure that comes with a smaller pool of business. Through our effective decentralized governance model, we constantly work on improving each entity's performance. We don't see signs of improvement despite our efforts. We proactively take measures to restructure it, as was the case this past quarter when we announced the closure of one smaller BU in England. Yes, it hampers our EPS in that particular quarter, but it enables management to focus on other things and it improves the consolidated in-vito profit margin in the longer term. Now let's go to Bonnie Scotland and our CIDI group, which I sometimes refer to as the gift that keeps on giving. As mentioned at our capital markets day in December, CIDI and worker profiles have won there and in-vito's largest order to date were 20% of the total profit margin. This is a significant increase of £32.5 million over the coming two years and with a possible extension that would double it over another two years. Apart from this being yet another stamp of approval for the quality of this business, it is an excellent example of what we expect to happen across the EU over the next few years as governments in member states divide by the EPBD directive and renovate old houses, making them more energy efficient with a particular focus on replacing windows and doors. All of our business areas performed well also this past quarter, particularly considering their different operating contexts. Scandinavia, first of all, delivered strong profit margins yet again, seeing more volume flow through a more cost effective structure. Denmark is stable on a high level and in Sweden the consumer market showed signs of recovery. Norway, however, remains soft and so does new build across all three countries. Eastern Europe remains severely hampered by the historic low new build levels, whereas renovation at last seems to have bottomed out, illustrated by the healthy order intake growth of 16%. Business area e-commerce continues to grow profitably as per its plan and operating EBITDA almost doubled, which is really impressive. Western Europe also did well across most parameters and particularly in Ireland where market conditions are more favorable than in England. I've said it before and I'll say it again, sustainability has become a natural part of our DNA and last quarter was no exception. We reached yet another key milestone by introducing Scope 3 to our SPTI reporting and throughout all my site visits since I joined, I've witnessed our focused work within this important field and it's definitely paying off in reduced emissions, less waste, lower absence and in fewer accidents. And while many out there still perceive sustainability as a cost driving must do, we at Invito are increasingly turning it into also a commercial opportunity, perfectly exemplified by our Finland based PILA group that in Q4 launched a groundbreaking low CO2 window. Through exclusive collaboration with our main suppliers within glass and aluminium, we completely revolutionized the industry and reduced the emission standard by more than 40% for zero. Construction companies already embrace it since it drastically helps them meet regulatory and shareholder requirements. On this slide, we summarize our key financials for Q4 2024 relative to Q4 the previous year and it's a strong set of numbers I think. Order intake grew by 20% and by 19% organically and our order backlog reached a healthy 2.5 billion SEC up by 29%. Net sales in turn increased by 7% quarter on quarter and was plus 5% organically. Operating a beta edged up a bit from last year to 296 million SEC, which equates to a marginal .2% slightly down from .7% in 2023, where the lion's share of the delta is related to BA Eastern Europe's much tougher market conditions. Net debt in relation to operating ABDA went up slightly from 1.0 times last year to 1.1 times now or 0.7 times if not applying IFRS 16 accounting. Accordingly, well within our set targets and leaving a healthy headroom for further growth, including acquisitions. Okay, let's now take a deeper look into the rear view mirror of 2024 and a sample of our achievements across organic and acquired growth as well as sustainability is listed here. We have a clear strategic roadmap, so focus is really on execution, the how. I was therefore really pleased by the way we as a team took further steps to strengthen our market leadership and our operating platform so that we can grow faster over the coming years. In parallel, we managed the soft market conditions prevailing in several markets in an impressive fashion. Yet another proof that we have the best people in the business and that our governance model works really, really well. When our peers stepped on the brakes, we went for it instead, leveraging our financial muscle and making long term investments in people and in equipment. Several great new products offered ammunition to our sales force and boosted our confidence. On dividends, a key component of course of our total shareholder value creation, Invidos Board of Directors is proposing five Cro950 euro per share, which is if you're just for restructuring costs, totally in line with our policy, also bearing in mind that we have strong cash flow generation and that we have plenty of acquisition opportunities out there to pursue. As I'm sure you recall, 2024 was a bumpy ride, but we fared really well overall and that positive momentum and experience is highly useful as we have now entered a new year. Q1 last year was still severely hampered by low market demand, but in Q2 we started growing our order intake again and that pattern continued throughout also second half of 2024. And do note that our profitability has remained rather high in all four quarters, which is quite impressive, I think, given the circumstances. Our full year figures comprise an organic net sales decline of 6% and operating a beta margin of .8% down from .4% in 2023. Return on operating capital equaled .7% compared to .4% in 2023 and the negative delta in earnings per share from 11.72 sec last year to 9.29 now was largely related to items affecting comparability and to positive currency effects in last year's financial net. Peter over to you for an in-depth review of the consolidated Q4 and full year financials. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Fredrik. We start with this page. This page is showing the income statement. To the left you can see the Q4 in the middle as well as to the right you can see the full year results. Starting with a quarter sales is down by 7% compared to last year. Adjusted for acquisitions and the currency, the sales is up by 7% and adjusted for acquisitions and effects, the organic growth is plus 5% compared to last year. The margin is lower compared to last year. Gross margin as well as operating EBITDA and operating EBITA margin is below last year due to Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is still challenging a tough market and with lower margins. All other segments has higher gross margins as well as operating EBITDA margin in the quarter compared to last year. So operating EBITDA margin declined from .7% to 12.2%. In the quarter we have a restructuring cost of 23 million due to the close down of the sales organizations of one business unit in the UK and also due to restructuring within e-commerce. Close down of the logistic centers and two showrooms. We have also positive tax impact in the quarter when compared to last year. It's a tax adjustment related to 2023 to CIDI before we acquired companies and that gave a positive impact of 22 million in the quarter when compared to last year. So then profit of the tax is up 1% and the earnings per share is down by 1% compared to last year due to our minority interest. Looking at the full year sales is down by 1% organically is down by 6% compared to last year meaning in video has lost during the last two years 2023 as well as 2024 combined organic sales of 2 billion. At the same time for the full year of 2024 the margin is slightly down gross margin from 25.8 to 25.4 also mostly related to development within Eastern Europe and operating EBITDA margin is down from 11.4 to 10.8. Further down in the eco statement we can see that profits of the tax is down by 80% from 703 million to 576 million and the earnings per share is down by 21% compared to last year. This page is showing a waterfall and to the left you can see the development in Q4 for sales and to the right we can see developments in operating EBITDA. Sales is up on all segments. All segments have higher sales this year compared to last year in Q4. However the result is down in Eastern Europe whereas Scandinavia, e-commerce and Western Europe has higher results in SICK and also higher margins when compared to last year. As I said before and also as Fredrik said Eastern Europe especially Finland is still facing challenging markets. The margins of Eastern Europe is below last year however the margin of last year was historically quite high so when comparing the margins in Q4 for Eastern Europe to levels of 2019 until 2021 it's slightly below those levels. Then we have really high margins in 2003 as well as in 2022. Looking at the margins and a long term perspective the margins for Q4. The margin Q4 this year is below last year 12.2 compared to 12.7. However it is above the level of 2021 as well as 2022. Looking at the average during the last six years the margin is slightly above the average of the last six years. Looking at the cash flows, the cash flow is more or less the same level as last year. It's slightly positive when looking at cash flow before financial activities and then excluding financial assets and all acquisitions. Then it's up 1% compared to last year. The cash flows from operating activities is down by 7% and then has that been compensated by more positive when it comes to changes in working capital. Then Invidia is investing more this year compared to last year or last years. On the graph to the right you can see the development for the full years 2019 until 2024. Prior to the pandemic Invidia had a capex level of about .5% of sales. Then during the pandemic and due to different reasons the capex level went down and Invidia must compensate that for those lower levels during the pandemic. It has been increased by .4% of sales in 2023 and 2024 is now 4.1%. You can expect a little bit higher capex level around 4% in the next coming years to compensate the lower levels during the pandemic. With the stable results slightly above last year and with the cash flows on the same level as last year, the net debt has decreased in the quarter. The net debt including IRFR 16 was ,000,000 in December this year. Excluding IRFR 16 it was ,000,000 meaning we have an IRFR 16 debt of ,000,000. Looking at net debt in relation to operating EBTA it was 1.0 including IRFR 16 compared to 0.9 last year and excluding IRFR 16 is 0.7 compared to 0.6 last year. Invidia has a target not to go above 2.5 meaning Invidia has financial headroom and for future growth both when it comes to investing in our facilities or in our production units and also when it comes to acquisitions. Another financial target of Invidia is return operating capital. Return operating capital is defined as EBTA rolling 12 months in relation to operating capital and operating capital is the average last four quarters. In 2022 it was on the highest level on .3% and since then Invidia has facing tougher market conditions. Due to the last two years, as I said before, Invidia has lost 2 billion of organic sales decline. In 2022 the operating EBTA margin was 11.4 and now in 2024 the operating EBTA margin has declined to 10.8, a decline of .6% units. When it comes to EBIT of course it has declined due to the lower sales. So we're calculating the return operating capital we have a lower profit level. It leveled out in Q2 and Q3 on 13%, 13.1%. Now in Q4 we have this restructuring cost that has a negative impact when calculating return operating capital. So adjusted for restructuring cost it would have been around this 13%. We have somewhat higher operating capital in Q4 compared to Q3 the average and that is due to tax payments but also due to a weaker Swedish krona and that has a negative impact when calculating the operating capital. Invidia has also changed the market segment definition. In the past we talked about consumer and industry. That has now been changed to consumer and projects. We have reclassified some of the customers. Mostly associated to house manufacturers and housing units. They were in the past classified as consumer sales. Now they are classified as product sales. The reason behind this is to a little bit better explain the order take as well as the order backlog. Because after the acquisition of SIDI we have more variance in the order take between the different quarters because SIDI when they take orders they can take really big orders as we could see in December 2024. So by changing the definitions we can then a little bit better see the development especially when it comes to order backlog and also the order take between the different customer segments. So Invidia has now with the new calculations about 60% or 61% consumer sales and 36% when it comes to product sales. And thereby we have also split it up the order backlog as well as the order take for these two new segments consumer and projects. On this page to the left you can see the order backlog. The order backlog was end of December 2 billion 490 million and last year it was 1 billion 937 million. The order backlog then consists of consumer of about 23% of the order backlog is consumer and that has increased by 13% and the project orders is about 76% of the order backlog and has increased by 35%. The consumer orders or the backlog consumer order backlog is quite short. That means it's going to be delivered next coming quarter 6 to 8 weeks delivered times and is the normal delivered times on the consumer orders. The product orders on the other way is can be quite long can be one year can also some cases are be up to two years but one year to two years and can also of course be a little bit shorter than six months as well. But in in normal circumstances the product orders are quite much longer delivered times compared to the consumer orders. Looking at the order intake the order intake was plus 20% adjusted for. So plus 20% adjusted for FX and excluding acquisitions and and FX it was plus 19% compared to last year. Consumers was minus 2% and the projects was plus 60% and then of course the large order of side has a positive impact looking at the order intake for projects. The Western Europe had a positive order intake growth of 86% compared to last year. But we had also positive growth in Eastern Europe with plus 10% and e-commerce which only selling to consumer markets was plus 12% compared to last year. Scandinavia was more or less on the same level as last year. I now hand it over back to Fredrik.

Thank you very much Peter. Looking at our four business areas then and starting with Scandinavia we saw a healthy improvement in both top and bottom line performance. This was driven by the consumer market that remains solid in Denmark and that is gradually improving in Sweden. Whereas Norway remains soft still. Costs are generally under control meaning the higher sales volume had a nice drop through to the operating EBITDA margin which increased from .0% to .1% in the quarter. Moving eastward the rapid worsening of market conditions has resulted in a sharp decline of demand and a related increase in competition and price pressure for this BA. Our entities have generally adapted very well to the situation and done better than their peers but still came out at a much lower profit level than the same period last year. Operating EBITDA margin went from .5% to 6.3%. However there is a silver lining to this story in the form of BA sales, order intake and order backlog increasing which bodes well for what's to come. Turning our focus to the next BA, e-commerce, we can proudly conclude that the team is continuing its growth in online sales and that the profitability follows suit. Excellent figures all around with the icing on the cake being operating EBITDA almost doubling from 12 to 23 million SEC resulting in a margin of 8.6%. The new year has already seen positive news in the form of Poland having been added as a new market through the brand Sparokna and a second brand being added in Germany. We head back west and like the upward sloping curves of this BA meaning they also made excellent progress on their profitable growth journey despite market conditions in England being far from where we expect them to be. Still we have a broad portfolio of several well established entities and collectively they grew top line which also meant operating EBITDA margin ended up higher than last year at 11.6%. Ireland looks solid and in Scotland we of course enjoy the already mentioned record orders to CIDA Group. The BA's order intake growing by a staggering 86% I think is quite okay. To wrap up then, I want to thank all my co-workers for a job well done throughout 2024 in general and during Q4 in particular. We have weathered this storm very well and are now better positioned than ever for what's around the corner. After a desert walk of seven quarters we are now back on the organic net sales growth track and furthermore for the third consecutive quarter we also grow order intake and backlog. Pricing, cost efficiency and restructuring measures are beginning to bear fruit although there's more to come in this field as well as in M&A where we keep pushing. Leading indicators are gradually improving and our energy level is high. All in all me and my management team are enthusiastic about what lies ahead. I'll leave you with this page, an illustration of the external and internal organic and acquisitive building blocks that will take us all the way to the 2030 flagpole we have put in the ground. We expect demanding consumer and projects to bounce back, the EU's green transformation to kick in from 2026, our own efforts to add value, add new businesses to be added to our portfolio. So we are making good progress on this super exciting journey and I dare to say that we have only scratched the surface yet. And now Peter and I would be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have.

The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, Peder, thank you for taking my questions. Just a question first on the gross margin decline in East Asia. Is this competition from local players and can you give us some favour on how you expect the margin to develop going forward? Then also you mentioned that you grab market share in your main markets. Is this also the case for Finland and if so, are you doing it through pricing with regards to the gross margin?

Thanks. Hi Albin, I think we hand this one over to you, Peter, first of all, if you don't mind.

Okay, the first question, yes, it's all local products. Finland has a special product. All markets have special products, I must say, but Finland has a really special product. So they have very little import, some import from the Baltics, but quite small. So it's local producers. The market is tough. The pricing is tough and thereby the margin has been lower. Now we're also comparing to Q4 last year. In Finland, most of our sales, not most, but quite a high degree of our sales is product sales, meaning we take the orders and the levers are six to nine months later. And in Q4, we had deliveries of orders with prices taking when the prices was at top. And at the same time, the material prices went down in Q4. So we had a double positive impact when looking at margins. And thereby the margins in Q4 2023 was quite high for Eastern Europe. It was also high in Q4 2022, but then was more related to volume. We had a really good volume in Q4 2022 before the market started declining in 2023. So looking at the margins for Eastern Europe 2024, then we are a couple of percent units behind the level of 2019 until 2021. So it's not such a big gap between 2024 and prior 2023 and 2022. The next questions, if we have gained market shares, we don't know yet for Q4. We're not seeing data for Q4 yet. But yes, we believe we have gained some market shares. And yes, we have been. We have it's I must say it's due to pricing in that sense that we have reduced the prices more compared to the competitors. The whole markets has gone down in prices and we have followed the market. And we have I think we are a little bit higher, not as much as the market has declined. But we have been able to gain market shares. I think that some customers are going to us due to our size and also due to our quality when it comes to delivery times, but also due to the sustainability. We have been able to launch some new products where we are reduced to as it was mentioned about. Last questions going to the future. I foresee. I don't think we're going to go go back in the near future to the level of 2023 when it comes to margins. And so I think you have to look more to prior 2023 even look at the margin of development for Eastern Europe.

Alright, but you want to expect the gross margins to be higher than 24% or is this normal levels here coming years?

We force the better market conditions in 2025 competitive 2024. We can see that all intake is going up and we can see that we have a higher order backlog now when the year starts. And this will then mean that we will have a higher volume in 2025 competitive 2024 and with a high volume everything else equal. We will have a better margins. You should remember that in 2024, especially the first six months, the market was very tough in Finland and we decrease our capacity quite much. And we were not running full weeks in our production unit, so we foresee a better volume and a better volume. We can expect better markets.

Perfect thanks a lot and then consumer or order intake down 2% since e-commerce is going quite well in that sense and also is starting to pick up consumer. Is it fair to think that the Western Europe is days weak link here or could give us a split between business areas for consumer order intake?

Yes, and e-commerce is up and e-commerce is only selling on the consumer market and the other markets. We have a small decline. Just below zero in Scandinavia as well as in Western Europe. We have a small decline, so the decline is and then we have a larger decline when it comes to Eastern Europe.

And then just one final. I think at least you, Fredrik, usually say that acquisition is hard to forecast since they either happen or don't happen. But in order to reach your growth target, you need some -8% every year. So what's your best guess for M&A during 2025 and also if you can tell us something about most likely countries for M&A etc. Thanks.

Yeah, no, thank you. That's a relevant question, of course. Yeah, and it would have been fantastic to be able to announce a new deal, a sizable one already today. But I'm quite comfortable with this. I think actually since our latest report, the Q3 one and our discussions at the capital markets, the activity level has continued up a bit, which is good. We have a couple of active cases, I would say. It doesn't mean per se that exactly these ones will happen, but it of course increases the likelihood. Timing is still super tricky, partly because of some market uncertainty still prevailing and partly because these companies are typically private, family owned, second, third generation, not always up to speed on how these processes work, etc. And we need to pay attention to that. So we take it step by step. We have cases in both existing geographic markets, but also in a new geographic markets that we're looking at. And that's, as we stated before, it's basically anything south of where we are today. So more towards Central Europe. But we're looking quite broadly into Central Europe. So it's everything from adding to the western part of our Western Europe BA, which could involve of course, Benelux. But then we're moving also into France, Germany, the out countries. But we're also quite actively looking into what some refer to more as Eastern Europe. So Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, the Balkans, etc. etc. So quite a quite a broad approach. Again, we're looking for for the new market entries. We're looking for solid incumbents, not smaller add ons typically, but someone who's already got a sizable business that's well reputed with a strong management team, etc. We're, of course, in parallel trying to figure out what will happen with this EU Green Deal transformation in each member country. And that is still a moving target in Sweden. As you know, Bovek will come up with some clarity on that picture in March this year. And I guess that will happen in most of the other EU member countries as well. And that can of course have some kind of impact on our appetite for a certain geographic jurisdiction. But overall, I'm actually I'm very happy with the structured approach that we're taking. I'm happy with the fact that quite a few ones are bouncing on our on our door every now and then inviting us to processes and auctions and so on. So, yeah, optimistic about it.

All right, that's very helpful. Thank you very much. That's all for me.

Thank you, Albin.

The next question comes from Johnny Jinn from SEB. Please go ahead.

Hello and good morning, Fredrik and Peter. Thank you for taking my question. I want to follow up a little bit here on the gross margin and particularly zooming in on Scandinavia a little bit. So I can see that the gross margin is very strong in Scandinavia. And I was wondering if you could elaborate here a little bit. Is it mainly mix that drives the strength or are we seeing other signs like efficiency gains also starting to shine through? That would be helpful if you can comment around that. Thank you.

If I start perhaps, Peter, and you can, as usual, fill in with more even more quality. I think overall we have a we have a good portfolio of companies within the BA Scandinavia. And and they're all gradually doing better. At the same time, we must not forget that Norway is still in the doldrums. And and I don't think he will take off to the next level, at least not in the first half of this year. It will take some time for Norway and the Norwegian market to get back on its feet. Overall, we you're correct in the fact that we have some efficiency gains that are flowing through in in the operational platform. Having said that, there's more to come, should be more to come, partly through more volume flowing through as the markets normalize and partly because some of the restructuring work. And I take the Vietnam factory of elite fosters. One good example, that work is not done yet. It's still a work in progress. Good progress on that project. But it won't be ready fully until the end of this year, meaning that you won't see any full efficiency gains coming out of that until early twenty twenty six. I would say on top of that, as usually in our industry, if you if you just quote unquote, deliver the right products according to the right spec at the right place, then you are in a good position to to charge a decent price for that. And I think that's partly what we've been doing. We have very solid and smooth running operational setup and increasing confidence in our pricing, which is something we've talked quite a lot about. We have more and more of best practice sharing across the entities and all of that adds up to to a better and better situation, I think, than before. But let's not forget that it's still it's still a competitive playing field out there for Scandinavia. So we're all I think they've done a really good job. Peter, anything else you want to comment on there?

No, not more than we have also have a volume growth in this quarter compared to last year. And so we have a higher volume in Scandinavia compared to last year. Otherwise, nothing more to add.

OK, thank you. That was very clear. And then I want to go back to Eastern Europe a little bit. I know we already touched upon the gross margin profile in Eastern Europe, but zooming into cost and the OPEC side in Eastern Europe. I was wondering, could you shed some comments around that? It appears to cost is up a little bit. So I was wondering, are there anything particular that drove the cost in Finland, for instance, in this quarter? Or how should we think about the cost development in Finland going forward?

You want to take that, Peter?

We have a higher cost in the depending on what kind of cost we're looking into. The material cost is up compared to last year in Finland, and that has a negative impact on the margins, especially the gross margins compared to last year. And the other costs slightly up. And we have been also now looking into our future. We foresee a better market in 2025 compared to 2024. And last year, one year ago, we foresee a really tough start of 2024, and thereby we started also to take down the cost levels connected to that. And if we believe that the market will be somewhat better, we don't believe in a big, large increase in 2025, but we foresee a little bit better market conditions in 2025 compared to 2024. And we have started to plan and adjust for that as well.

OK, that was clear. And then just on the order backlog, specifically on the project side of the backlog, can you say something about the profitability in that backlog? I suppose it mainly relates to the UK. So can we expect similar profitability in the backlog as the current profitability levels we see now in Western Europe?

I think when it comes to the backlog, particularly for Western Europe, and even more particularly if we talk about SIDE and, for example, the record order that they took here in Q4, one has to look at what is take on margin and then what is actual pocket margin. And theoretically, of course, with a project this size, which is, you know, fully open books, auction, open bidding for this North Atlantic Shared Council in Scotland, then of course competition is really fierce. At the same time, we are really, really on top of our cost base, meaning that we have a really nice track record of getting the already the take on margin at the nice level. Then again, we have a very strong track record of avoiding leakages throughout the life of the project and in fact, trying to find even more efficiencies throughout the life of the project, meaning that the actual pocket margin ends up, at least in line with or in some cases higher than the take on margin, meaning that to answer your question, I think when I look at it, I think the quality of the backlog margin wise is actually rather healthy because it's also as Peter alluded to earlier when we talked about Eastern Europe, in some cases, whoever is responsible for handing out these projects to a supplier is really, really keen on making sure that the supplier will be around in 18, 24 months time and deliver the goods according to the specs. And so in some cases, price is not everything that counts. There are a couple of other parameters, thankfully, that are in more than this as well, meaning that we in some cases actually have less competition just because of our track record and our capabilities. So overall, just to answer your question, I think the quality of the backlog is actually quite healthy.

Okay, thank you. That was all for me. Thank you very much for asking the questions.

Thank you, Johnny.

The next question comes from Lena Blom from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Hi, Claire Dickens, Peter. Thank you for taking my questions as well. Order intake was flat in Scandinavia. Is it possible to say if it was primarily due to headwinds in Norway or did the Swedish market also see a decline in orders?

Yes, Peter, go ahead, please.

The Swedish market was a little bit positive compared to last year in the quarter. The decline was mainly related to Norway. We have on if you split it between consumer industry for Scandinavia and industry was slightly positive, low positive with five, six percent, whereas the consumer was just below last year.

Thank you. And then on the same topic, you mentioned signs of cautious recovery in the Swedish consumer market and compared to Q3, would you say that you have seen an improvement in the market?

Yeah, I think we have a couple of more data points. I mean, you guys read the statistics just as much as we do. But the fact that if we take Sweden as an example, the fact that we have more transactions going on in the in the residential housing market and that prices are gradually getting up a bit is for us a good sign. Then it is, as we said earlier, there is always a bit of a lag between, for example, interest rate cuts by Riksbank and households seeing that they have more money left in their wallets and then taking that money to go and spend it on on various consumption things, including windows and doors. But but overall, I'd say all else equal, including weather and stuff. We have more positive leading indicators now than just a few months ago. Yes. I think also that was all

for me.

Maybe, Lena, just to add to that. Sorry, no, it just struck me. I mean, maybe just a few words about the new build market as well. We are, you know, when I talk to the various property developers and property owners, they are, of course, increasingly, yeah, again, pushing the control F9 button to to see that their projects now look more healthy and more profitable. I they they get going on some of the projects that were previously put on hold when the whole market came into a downturn of the cycle. But there is more optimism there as well, I think. And to add to that, the low carbon window that we launched in Finland this fourth quarter is an excellent example of something that grabs a lot of people's attention over a very short time span, actually, because it really takes the boxes that they need to take where where they are under quite a lot of pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. And and since they have quite a few windows and they need to replace them every now and then using a window like this one, albeit a little bit more expensive than a traditional window helps them reduce their carbon footprint by quite a substantial margin.

Thank you for that addition as well. And thank you very much and congratulations to Agus Report.

Thank you very much, Lena. Have a nice day.

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

OK, thank you, operator. And there are no question, no written questions. So we have by. Any words from you, like.

Yes, well, I think we wrap it up. Thank you, Peter. First of all, and thanks everyone out there for listening. Have a really nice day. Have an in-vito day, as we say. Thank you very much.