I-Tech AB

It is one o'clock and we welcome viewers here to the report presentation of today where you as a viewer also have the opportunity to ask questions to the management and you do that via the live chat during this broadcast. I will be keeping an eye on it. Today we are joined here on stage by iTech who has published their final and fourth quarterly report for the fiscal year of 2025 and standing beside me is Markus Jönsson who is the CEO of the company. Welcome. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. You have a presentation prepared for us here today and I will simply hand over the word and come back later to ask a few questions. Thank you very much, Mike.

So a new year, new possibilities. We're here live from Stockholm today from the Investor Studios to give you the presentation of the year end report of Q4 for iTech. So before we get into the numbers, etc., I will just do a brief introduction of the company in case there are any new viewers or people that are not acquainted with iTech from the past. So essentially what iTech is and what we are doing, we are a biotech company, an ingredient provider, but our key focus market is maritime shipping. And really the problems that we are here to solve, or one of the major problems, is the question that we are posing here on the first slide. So what if one third of the full global fleet were using 36% more fuel than needed, even for one day? What would that mean in terms of costs and emissions for shipping? And that's exactly one of the key challenges that we are addressing in iTech. So our solution is targeting a problem of fouling for ships. So really the underwater surface area of the ship can get fouled of various organisms. And our solution is targeting barnacles, which is so-called hard fouling. And why are they a challenge? Well, they create a big additional drag on the ship. So it means the increased friction and increased need for power and more fuel to actually smoothly travel through the water. The barnacles are thriving in most marine environments, so all across the globe. And they are cunning little creatures in the sense that they are super gluing themselves to the surface. So they are very, very difficult to remove. and you risk damaging the coating if you try to remove them. So really the most efficient strategy is to actually prevent them from settling on the ship as well. So our solution is called Celectope, and it is actually a clever solution coming from the world of pharma. So originally it's a sedative that is used for humans and for veterinary medicine, but scientists then found out that it has the opposite effect on the barnacle larvae. It actually makes them temporarily hyperactive. So it doesn't kill or harm the target organism, but actually deter them from settling on the surface. And this really helps the ship owners then to reduce the emissions to air, but also protect our sensitive coastal marine ecosystems because biofouling on ships' hulls is today the number one vector for spreading of invasive aquatic species. So it's really important to keep our ships clean so that we protect sensitive local ecosystems. And the third thing, which is so ingenious with our solutions, is that we are also reducing the emissions to the ocean very, very significantly. It's extremely efficient. So you need a very, very small amount, which in itself then protects the environment further. So now we will come to the results. And in that case, I will hand over to CFO and head of operations, Magnus Hunell, who will take you through the numbers and see you later.

Let's go into the results and very nice to be here again talking to all of you. And as we start on this slide, I just want to give you a short overview of what happened in the company over the past years. As most of you know, we have had a very nice growth of the company. Even though we are declining a little bit this year, we're still on an average of roughly 30% since our IPO in 2018, which is very strong numbers over the seven years that these are presented. And I also want to give you an idea that when we're coming into Q4 and the full year of 2025, we are comparing to very, extremely strong sales numbers in Q4-24 and also in Q1-25, but These are very strong and we will talk a little bit about why we are not as strong today. Looking on the full year, we see that our smaller customers show a really strong growth, but we also see that the sales to our second largest customer is much lower than last year. We will go into the details later on. Talking about Q4, as I said, we're comparing with a tremendous quarter last year. We have unfortunately a decline in the net sales in Swedish krona of 33%. I think it's quite important to point out that the currency adjusted downturn is only 23%. It's still large but it's much lower and then you can see that the US currency has really impacted us. What is really nice to see for this year is that we actually improved the gross margin by 6%. We're going from 54% gross margin to 57% and that is due to mainly our operational efficiencies where we have better production processes, more producers, making sure that we have a stable production price, which means that we can also be stable towards our customers. Coming into the result, of course, we have reduced both EBITDA and EBIT, down 5% roughly on both, but they are still very strong. This shows also by the very strong cash conversion that we have in the company. For the quarter, we have an operating cash flow of almost 13 million compared to 6 million last year. On the cash side, it's growing. Our cash balance, of course, is also growing into almost 150 million. Looking into 2025 as a full year, the comparison numbers are not that dramatic. We are down 6% on the net sales. We are up 3% on volumes. We are up 2% in the currency-adjusted growth. But unfortunately, in Swedish krona again, then, we are down 6%. Also here, for the full year, we have improved the gross margin up to 57%, also for the full year. We need to point out that our largest customers, Sugoku Marine Paint, they grew by 21% this year, which is a really strong growth compared to what we show in the final end. So with this growth in gross margin, we're in Swedish krona, actually larger gross profit than we had previous years. And then we have invested a little bit more in our operational cost, which means that we lower the result a bit, but we're still on almost 30% EBITDA level. And looking into the geographical spread of our customers, which is quite important, we have emphasized before, we're coming back to the regulatory part, that Europe is a very low percentage of our sales. It's only 2% for 2025 as full year. Last year it was 3%, which means that Asia have taken yet another little bit bigger part. the ratios between the three largest markets, which is Korea, China, and Japan, has leveled out. Last year Korea was 50% of the sales and China was quite much lower. Japan has been stable over the years, but the main reason is actually the very nice growth in China and the lower sales to our second largest customers, which means that China, whose really important market moving forward with all their maintenance work, is really growing nicely and 96% in 2025 is a very strong growth. So just to summarize the financial year of 2025, we have forward momentum. We have headwinds in some parts, tailwinds in some parts, but we have a very strong margins and cash precision, 57% gross margin, 25% EBITDA. We have a diversification. Our smaller customers grow really strong. They grow by more than 100% over the year. We have our largest customers growing by 20% and the volume growth in China is 96%. Which means that we are confident for the future, but we also need to prepare for all the upcoming work. So in the proposal from the board, there is a proposed increase of the ordinary dividend. from one krona per share up to 125 but with no extra dividend for this year and I think Markus will talk a little bit more about that when he's coming back into the picture.

Thank you very much, Magnus. As you mentioned, we have underlying very good developments with the majority of the customers in the portfolio. And as you mentioned, a very strong cash generation and really a large cash at hand. So what is it that we will be doing with these funds, you could say, besides giving it back to our shareholders then? Well, we want to keep some of the cash to develop the business, and we will come in and talk about the business development now in the next section, which is the outlook and how we will move the company forward. So if we start a little bit talking about the market outlook, I mean, overall for shipping, it's still quite positive. You know, we saw a small increase in seaborne trade around 1.1% during last year. It was a little bit higher in 2024. In terms of, you could say, the shipyards output, it increased actually by 6%, measured in gross tonnage. And we expect that to continue actually in 2026 as well, and even growing more by 15%. So really, at the moment, there is a large output coming out of the shipyards, right? We see, of course, contracting activity being somewhat lower during 2025. It was quite a bit of a turbulence in the first half of the year that sort of impacted the new contracting. So we're talking then the order books of the shipyard, you could say, three to four years out into the future. They dropped, but they are still significantly above, you could say, the 10-year trend. we also see a quite solid outlook in the maintenance and repair market it is somewhat cyclical but you know of course it's the larger part of the market we say typically new ships around 1800 to 2000 ships per year and the service events are between 15 and 20 000 so it's a much bigger market and of course very important for us as a growth market and magnus was mentioning that also as china is being one of the key regional markets for us to grow So I think we look back at 2025 and are really happy about the uptake that we're seeing in China and looking forward to that. So from a market perspective, of course, there is this risk you could say of geopolitical instability. But also, you could say on shipping, if we have a more stabilized world, you could say going forward, it could also be that the ton miles of shipped goods could actually go down if the Suez Canal opened up in the good old days, et cetera. So there are sort of risks of stability as well, you could say, to shipping and the shorter rates, et cetera, going forward. But we see continued good momentum in the market really, so it's good to see for 2026. Another parameter that we are following is actually the price of copper. Copper oxide is the traditional anti-fouling solution that is used, you could say, to prevent barnacles and hard fouling from settling on the ship's hulls. and Selectope then representing sort of a new technology could also be quite interesting from a cost performance perspective going forward. So we have seen quite an increase of copper prices. And actually what this slide is demonstrating is the margin benefits for two companies, or you could say two products competing head to head with similar price points. at different prices of the copper. So if you go back to 2016, you know the copper price was quite low. It was around $5 per kilo. And at that time, you could say it was actually slightly beneficial versus an entry price level to use a formulation without copper and Select Hope instead. But sort of in the recent years, we've been in a market setting actually where copper prices have been high enough so that select hope is actually more advantageous from a margin perspective. And also then looking into the future here, it's predicted that there's actually a lack of copper going forward. And that would drive up prices and it would make select hope much more attractive as a solution to prevent barnacles as well. We see that as giving us additional momentum for the future for growth of Select Hope. So it's really nice and a good factor going forward. Now we come then to the re-registration process in Europe that we have been talking about, you could say, extensively over the past two years. So essentially where we are in the process for this year then, we reported back in December that there is now a proposal for a non-renewal of SelectOp's approval for the European market, which we of course regret that the EU, despite our best efforts to inform, has come to this conclusion, right? There is still, of course, a chance to influence this decision because we expect a decision to happen, you could say, earliest in Q2, most likely. So there is still some time for us to affect. And of course, we are preparing for a scenario where there is a non-renewal. And we also say that, of course, we will take this on more from a legal perspective in that case. So we should see this as the first round, and it's a story that will continue. So regulatory costs and costs associated with that will be continuing to be on a slightly elevated level, at least for this year, and probably also for the foreseeable future, if we have to do additional testing. So this is the status and the situation with EU now. so if we come to a more positive story it's the story of our business development pipeline we also have talked about that quite extensively on previous earnings calls and we are really really active and we can see that now also during q4 and into this year that our activities are ramping up so we are speaking to several new interesting collaboration partners in parallel We were fortunate enough to actually announce our collaboration with Hawaii Advanced Materials in the end of November. So that is one partner that we are talking to, and there are several others. And you can say then, what is the focus of your business development pipeline? Well, it is to bring sort of complementary solutions to our existing customers, but also looking then into other attractive marine markets, such as aquaculture, more of the yacht market, etc. So we are really actively working here and we can see also that this is now starting to consume quite a bit of resource from the entire team here. So that's something we will come back to again, the need really to invest in the company for the future here when it comes to fixed costs and resources. But it's quite exciting results so far and we of course look forward to be able to talk and give more news about the business development pipeline during the course of this year. So coming then to the business outlook, we spoke about in the report as well, we see new customer product launches specifically for the Korean market. So we will of course closely monitor and see how these products develop. But as we also stating, most likely it will take quite a bit of time until these volumes contribute, oh sorry, these products contribute significant volumes going forward. As I mentioned then for the business development pipeline we are sort of in active negotiations around a battery of new potential strategic partnerships and that's something we are looking forward to advance and close them during this year. We will have continuous advocacy linked to regulations and of course engage the European Union but also our other key markets on the topic of sort of select open select top approval. And as I was mentioning then, in order to be ready for the future and to be able to complete all the business development activities, we have taken the decision to increase the team. So we will be welcoming several new team members, permanent members, during the first half of this year. So we also need to bring them up to speed and introduce them to their new tasks, etc. So that is the focus of the company. So coming back then to the strong cash position. Magnus was mentioning that we're looking into increasing the ordinary dividend. Also, there could be changes in the regulations so that we could actually be able to consider share buybacks for the future. But we also need to keep some of the cash to be able to realise some of the business development opportunities going forward. So that is really the plan as it looks now for this year. So with that, I think we're done with the presentation and we look forward to an engaging Q&A session.

Thank you very much, Markus and Magnus. If I'll begin with the numbers first, looking at your net sales decreased by 33% and the operating profit almost halved. But looking at the full year, as you explained during the presentation, it's not as dramatic, a 6% or 10% decrease there. How should shareholders interpret this development in the long term, and how does this quarter reflect your long-term development?

Maybe we should talk about our customers a little bit. We have very few customers. As we have talked about in earlier earnings calls, for 2025 we had very big and significant customers that actually came back to us and said that due to financial difficulties they were actually going to reduce the demand for this year. That was something you could say that happened well into 2025. And you could say that we have grown very positively, you could say, with the other smaller customers. But so far, I mean, hasn't been able to fully compensate, although, you know, actually our volumes are higher, right, for 2025 than 2024. So, yeah.

And considering that the volumes are higher in 2025 than 2024, how come net sales still decreasing?

Well, I think as Magnus was mentioning, currency has been sort of a big headwind for us as well, right? The fact, you know, we are buying and selling in U.S. dollars. So, I mean, there's no currency risk as such, right, in the business. But because of sort of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, it looks more dramatic, you could say, in Swedish crowns than in dollars.

Global seaborne trade has been increasing this year. It's not as big as last year, but this is despite the global uncertainties that you described in your report. A question from the chat asks the following question. Industry data shows strong results, but the company still struggles. Is that suggesting that you're losing market shares?

No, we do not believe we are losing market share overall. On the contrary, we believe that we are actually increasing our market share. And I think especially the results in China is demonstrating that, that we are growing so substantially in China for 2025. So underlying, it is actually quite a positive development. As Magnus was mentioning, our biggest customer grows by 20%. And we have several of the smaller customers, although from a lower level, growing more than 100%. Unfortunately, overall then, and you're looking at it in Swedish crowns, it's not able to compensate the dramatic reduction of volume that we see from one of the larger accounts. We're actually down two-thirds if you just compare calendar year.

Let's talk about that customer then. Two-thirds scaling down that volume compared to your other customers that are scaling up. Talking about the significant customer that is scaling down, what can you tell us about that customer?

Yeah, we actually touched upon that also in the Q3 presentation, right? But they were sort of reporting two things during last year. One thing was, you know, temporary financial constraints internal, right? So that was one reason. And also then you could say early on in the year that they actually had higher stock levels. So that sort of one thing led to the other, right? And that's why we saw the significant drop. However, long term, we do not see that, you know, this customer is in trouble sort of and they will most likely recover, you know, in the long picture, right? It's not that they are going to disappear from the market that we see is very, very unlikely, right?

There are many who are wondering the identity behind this customer. And while I understand that you might not be able to tell us exactly who it is, can you tell us something?

Well, unfortunately not. I think, you know, several of our customers actually do not want us to mention them specifically. Right. So we have to respect that. But it is a significant customer. Right. And I mean, it is, you could say, a financially sound and stable partner long term. But they have had some sort of temporary challenges during last year. So, of course, we remain sort of positive in the long run, also with them, you could say, to be able to recover and come back from the situation that we have been in during 2025.

And in recovering those volumes for iTech, are you seeing that your smaller customers are continuing to ramp up their volumes, or are you also expecting your more significant customer to recover?

Well, long term, definitely we would expect them to recover, but how quickly that is happening is, of course, a little bit unclear to us. But if you look at the smaller customers, they were logging very impressive growth figures. If you are launching a completely new product or an extension, they do develop quite differently as well. But we previously talked about PPG as one customer that was launching a new product during last year that really sort of replaced an old product right and has been taking significant volume and we see that continuing as well right there are people in chat also curious about what we can expect from that one significant customer more concretely during 2026 but also your other customers during 2026. yeah i mean we cannot go in and comment specifically account by account and i think it's also fair and we we keep on stressing this i think at every call as well right there is quite substantial variation between quarters right that depends on the customers purchasing behavior right and since we have so few customers you actually you actually see then you know quite big deviations between quarters also in sales right The long-term prospects are positive and we expect to continue to grow with Select Hope. Of course, then Asia being the key growth market.

Let's talk about re-approval then on the EU front. The EU has proposed not to renew the approval for Select Hope. What are the reasonings from the EU side and what are your counter-arguments when disputing this?

Yeah, so this, you could say, proposal is based on what we claim then, you could say, two essential flaws, right? So the first thing is that the export group, which is called the BPC group, they have then proposed to label medetomidine, which is the active substance in Celectope, as an endocrine disruptor, right? And for us, looking into the scientific definition of an endocrine disruptor, we of course see that our substance does not fulfill that criteria. And I think the key criteria is that you have to cause an adverse effect in the organisms that you're looking at. And there is no adverse effects. So we, of course, then dispute, you could say, the conclusion that the substance is endocrine disrupting. I think the second thing, and Norway then, as the reporting state, they were concluding is that there are several alternatives to Zetectop in the market, so it's not needed, right? And that's the second thing which we believe is also flawed, right? Because in reality, there are very, very few biocides that actually work against hard fouling and barnacles. while you could say the report is erroneously suggesting that there are eight or nine different other biocides, right? They do not even discriminate between soft and hard fouling, right? So you can see that there is really a lack of industry understanding and chemical understanding, right? And then they're also mentioning an array, you could say, of non-biocide alternatives, which we see, you know, they are not really mature enough commercially or available, you know, for that type of solution and so on, right? So there are several errors then, right? And also, you know, not only ITEC, but an array of stakeholders have been pointing this out to the European Commissions and the member states, you know, of all these, what we believe are errors in these conclusions then, right? And so far, unfortunately, you know, we haven't been heard or sort of they haven't listened to this. So hence, you know, we believe if there is finally a negative decision, we will, of course, move on and challenge this legally, right? Which we think we have a very stable base to do.

And talking then about cost, because you did mention in the presentation that you're expecting elevated costs relating to this re-approval process. Can you elaborate on that? On what levels you're expecting?

I'm handing over that one to Magnus actually.

I think we have quite a bit of cost already today. For the year we're trying to influence and that takes external resources. And these costs that we have, which is roughly 2 million SEK a quarter. So roughly eight to nine million SEC for the full year. We expect them to continue. Maybe not the same resources, but as Marcus is into, maybe into the legal resources, et cetera. So that will continue for next year. And that is not elevation of it. But what we also see is in order to fight this wrongfully labeling of endocrine disruptor, We most likely will, during the year, start a larger study where we actually can prove even more scientifically that it is not an endocrine disruptor. And those large studies, they are around 10 million sec in cost, which will be spread over a couple of years. it will still increase our cost. So maybe half of that could come this year, but that is really also depending on what happens in the outcome.

Let's talk a little bit about the outcome then. Someone from the chat is also curious if the decision becomes negative to say if it's not re-approved, then is that effective immediately or is there any sort of counter measures you can take to delay the date of effective?

the vote has happened and it's sort of public right there is what they call a six-month grace period right so then sort of it's a grace period for where the customers then have time to adapt you could say unfortunately you know a legal case and or a challenge of the decision could take you know between six to twelve months right so we actually could end up in a situation then where it can affect the market hopefully not but you know let's see even we still are hopeful for a positive outcome

And if we look to the European market, it's still a very small share of your net sales today, 2% if I'm not mistaken. Can you elaborate a little bit on your strategy to roll out the product in Europe, granted that the re-approval is approved?

Yeah. You know, Europe is not a big market. It is, you know, 5 to 8% maybe of the global opportunity for Select Hope, right? So it is quite a minor market from the beginning. Unfortunately, because of this piece of legislation that we have, which is called the BPR, the Biocidal Products Regulation, it doesn't really work in Europe. So, you know, Select Hope was originally approved in Europe back in 2016, but until today, actually no end product, so a coating product from a customer, has actually received EU-wide market approval under this piece of legislation, because the member states have not been able to agree on what they call the environmental protection criteria. So actually, the legislation is not working today. So it's very difficult, you could say. Even with the re-approval, it's very difficult for, you could say, the opportunity to be realized very quickly in Europe, as long as we have this piece of legislation that is sort of working, from our perspective, very less than optimal. It's actually blocking new innovation. which we believe is a key challenge for shipping. If we want to stay competitive in Europe, it is an issue that we will have to address.

With this entire process and the challenges you're facing in the EU regulatory, could that potentially cause some concern for potential customers in Europe?

Yeah, we see, of course, a negative decision in Europe. It's sort of tarnishing the brand a little bit. And of course, you could say that the other regulatory regimes in other regions of the world work differently. Some of them resemble a little bit the legislation in the EU, but none of them have really picked up on the topic of endocrine disrupting so far. So, of course, we need to be closely monitoring this and be proactive also in our communication versus, you could say, regional stakeholders and also regional regulators in our key important markets. So that is a key focus for us. We do not want this to spread outside Europe in the future.

And what is the risk or uncertainty around that that you're facing at the moment? I know some of the people in chat are very curious to know. What is the risk that Asia will also re-evaluate this thing?

Well, we assess it as very low at the moment, right? But we need to continuously sort of be close both to the regulators and to the market, right? So to make sure, you know, that we are informing them that, you know, we bring up the scientific proof on the table, etc., right? To show sort of what does the data really say about on one hand, you know, endocrine disrupting and endocrine efficiencies, and then also what type of alternatives are there out there, right? For instance, we can mention another region which is very important to us is South Korea, right? They have also a very restrictive policy around biocides, but they are going about this completely differently than Europe is doing. So they are now looking to implement sort of a a cap, you could say, on the amount of biocides that you can use in an anti-fouling product, a 1% cap, which means that it's actually a source for innovation. And that's why we saw these three new products that we were talking about being launched in Korea then during the autumn. is actually to be able to match this new legislation which is a headache and it's driving innovation right and a one percent cap is no problem for sedict hope you know we are fully effective at 0.1 percent right so it's actually positive for us right so we see you could say one other country that where shipping is really important and and you know they also want to to protect ecology and, you know, have low emissions to the ocean, but they take a completely, and what we think, much more educated way of sort of reducing the emissions of biocide, right? So there are really positive examples for Europe actually to follow on how to regulate, I could say.

You mentioned the three new products that you launched in Korea.

We are not launching, our customers are launching coding products.

Are these expected to be significant contributors to revenue as they ramp up?

It will take time because these products have been developed to match this new piece of legislation. It's going to be implemented, you could say, stepwise, etc. It will take a number of years before you could say that new piece of legislation is phased in and so on. So we expect it to take time also because before these products really contributes significantly. And of course, we should also know that we are already quite big on the Korean market. So you could say there could be some cannibalization between different customer products on the market. Overall, it's not negative for us, right? If you replace an old product with 0.1, a new product with 0.1 Select Hope, that's an even game, right? So it's, of course, that additional potential that we are after in Korea, which are the products that are not using Select Hope today. So that's what we mean. It could take some time before it's significantly contributing to our sales.

Let's talk about your cash position then. You're entering 2026 with a cash reserve of 148 million SEK. It's a rather sizable position considering that it's roughly 12 SEK per share, but also while you're proposing a dividend of 1.25 SEK per share. In utilizing this cash reserve, I know you mentioned it in the report, but can we get a repetition?

Besides the dividend, we want to keep cash at hand for our business development opportunities, the opportunity pipeline. If we are able to act on any of these partnerships, and there could be elements of acquisitions involved or upfront payments, we want to ensure that we have cash available so that we don't have to go out and ask for money for such smaller things. And then also there could be better things to do with the cash than actually giving it back in dividend. I don't know, Magnus, if you want to comment on development.

Yeah, but there is a proposal on the table to actually change the regulations about First North companies or non-regulated market companies to actually be able to buy back shares. Not synthetically, but really buybacks as the companies on the main market are allowed to do. We are actually then also considering weighting in this legislation for us to be able to buy back shares instead of increasing the dividends.

There's a viewer who's asking the following question. Why are you not doing share buybacks in the first place instead of dividends?

As I said, today on a non-regulated market, you could do, I'm not totally into it, but you could do some kind of statistical buyback twist, which we are not really interested in doing right now. But you need to be on the main markets, the main regulated markets, in order to follow regulation and be able to buy back shares. But that regulation is considered to be changed by the end of this year.

And Marcus, you mentioned you wanted to have cash on hand. How much?

How long is the string? Now we see, and you can say, you know, several of these opportunities, you know, it's ranging, right? How much would be needed? So we prefer to stay on the safe side, right? And for now, and let's see, you know, hopefully we want to really act on some of these opportunities and move fast, right? And then, you know, it's better to have the cash at hand to be able to do this.

There's a lot of viewers who are posing their questions here in the chat, so I'll just fire off Elsa to see them. Following question, your balance sheet shows an increase in year-end current liabilities of 3.6 million SEK, but your cash flow statement shows that liabilities consumed 4.2 million SEK of cash. Could you explain this discrepancy?

I actually can't say without the numbers in front of me exactly what they claim from the cash flow analysis that liabilities consume those 4.2. But there are normal changes in the current liabilities. with the vendor payments, etc. But of course, we also are increasing our tax liability as a current because we need to pay it during 2026. So that might be the discrepancy that he is talking about.

Regarding the MOU that you have with Hevy, for those of us without a background in chemistry, could you please explain in simple language how this helps to diversify iTech's current portfolio of products?

Yes. So I was showing a paint can at the slide earlier here. Maybe we can go back to that one. It's maybe easier to explain. So if you look at the paint can, you see here what are the contributions or the value in that paint can of different raw materials. And today, we are in that part which is called additives here, which represents 30 to 40. But it can be even higher, you could say, 30 to 40% of the value of the raw material cost of a formulation. And what HAWEI is doing, they are working with binder systems, or as it's called here, resins, which is essentially the part of the formulation that binds the coating together. So the biocides and the binders, the resins, these are the two key ingredients that actually, on one hand, represents the majority of the cost of the formulation, but also then provides the key performance criteria and benefits of the formulation. So we have been working, you could say, also before Havaden with binders as one of the innovation tracks, you could say, in high tech. But we have started to work together on looking at future innovations here. You could say both better performance, but also more sustainable anti-fouling solutions going forward. So we hope to be able to continue and close that discussion, you could say, during this year as well. And then we have a very interesting space for future innovation. and something that can also contribute significantly to sales.

We hope that answer will suffice as we move on to the next question. You also wrote that you will be welcoming new permanent members in the first half of this year. Can we expect operating costs to increase moving forward?

We have been talking about slight increases. We are increasing the staff by a few numbers over the year. We have been talking about what kind of costs we are driving from the regulation part. There will be some external cost, maybe not increased, but we will still have external cost in regards to the business development activities. And of course, if we come up with really interesting internal business development, we need to spend a little bit more R&D cost. But significantly changes that the only significant change, I would say that that would be if we go into this long term study on the endocrine disruption. But otherwise, yes, small increases. But we are at we have a slim business model and we should try to keep it slim. We have we have like for the full year 2025, we're almost 30 percent EBITDA. So we should, even if we make a lot of money, we shouldn't start spending too much money. But we should spend money on developing the company. And there we shouldn't be afraid. If we need to spend money there, we should spend money there. Because we're making money as well.

As we move over to the next question, with the new building activity up in 2026 and much easier comparables, is there any reason why we shouldn't expect a strong growth in Q2 2026 and onwards?

Well, as we said, long term, we remain very, very positive on the case. We have very, very good momentum with the majority of the customers. You know, we we stay very positive sort of on the long term prospects for Selecto. But of course, also for the other interesting things that we have in the pipeline to complement, you could say, a bigger and more diversified and stronger high tech going forward. Right.

So, yeah, just want to compliment that as Marcus is talking about the organic growth of the company, we still have the hustle with the U.S. dollars. Even now, during the first part of this year, it decreased significantly, even more so. Where will the bottom be on the dollar? We really don't know. So that could be one part that counteracts. But as you said, organically, we're looking very nice into the future.

So should we be prepared for stable sales or increasing costs? What level of growth should we expect in the SG&A in 2026? Do you think that we will see organic growth excluding FX currencies or should we be prepared for a year of stable sales but increasing costs?

I think we have guided enough at this time. We are not giving any forward-looking statements really, but we're talking about cost drivers for the coming year. We're talking about how we see on the market and then I think you need to draw your own conclusions about that.

Let's talk about new hires then. When you're looking to recruit, what key sort of skills are you looking for and the focus areas?

So you could say the business development part is you could say driving a need for more capacity. But then you're right. I mean, we also need additional skill sets. So one area we are looking into to strengthen is, for instance, regulatory affairs. Right. You know, we have this ongoing case with the EU, but we also know that we have to stay proactive with the other regions. You know, we are working on new things as well. So that's an area we need to strengthen. Of course, also the commercial side, we will look forward to strengthen going forward. So these are the main areas, really.

And when we're talking about the re-approval process, we also talked about that the European market is a rather small market. And there's another question here. Why spend between eight and nine million SEK per year in legal costs and potential new studies when Europe is already a small market?

Yeah. I think we touched upon it a little bit. It's mainly, you know, to prevent tarnishing the brands, right? Of course, we want to have a technology that is seen as an environmental sound option, right? And what EU is sort of claiming now, you know, is claiming that it's an endocrine disruptor and therefore should not be on the market. We need to challenge this more out of principle than out of, you know, direct commercial value. And also, you know, to prevent that this would spread in the future, right? So we need to take this head on, right? That's the option for us, right?

And so far, has there been any spillover effect of the re-approval process in Asian markets?

Well, we talked about this earlier as well. There has been a spillover effect in terms of, you could say, new developments, not in the existing sales, so you could say what has already been launched in the market. But you could say some customers then they look on the market very globally, and they want to launch, you could say, products that are available in all regions, right? We have had feedback that they have paused the global developments. They have still continued with their Asian product developments. But we have already seen it impacting these global products. But that is now very much in the past. So we do not see that affecting, you could say, Asia to the extent.

In the start of this Q&A, you mentioned that you're not seeing yourselves losing any market shares, but a viewer asked the following question. Do you see any increased competition from silicone-based anti-fouling or new technologies?

Yeah, I mean, silicon technology is an alternative coating technology, right? So you could say that you could view then silicon maybe versus traditional anti-fouling coating, right? There, of course, is a competition here. And some silicones, you know, they claim to be without biocides, right? But the most commercially successful silicones do contain biocides, right, today. And we see also, I mean, for the future to continue to have high performance, right? Biocides are really giving an edge also in silicon technology, right? So I think we view silicones more as a growth opportunity because to date, you know, there are no silicon products with Select Hope inside. So that is actually a growth opportunity for us, right?

We will ask the final question here from the chat and ask the following. Can you address the sales in the maintenance segment? Are they ramping up?

Definitely. I think, you know, we see maintenance sales in China sort of being more predominant than new build for our sake, right? So the fact that we have grown significantly in China is also a sort of a tick for us growing in the maintenance segment. So both of these things are sort of interconnected and a key strategic objective of us, right?

So yes, definitely. CEO Marcus Jönsson and CFO Magnus Häggenell, thank you very much for being here presenting and answering our questions.

Thank you Michael.