AB SKF (publ)

A warm welcome to this call where we will focus on SKF performance in Q1 2026. And we had a strong start of the year in terms of margin successful in navigating in volatile market conditions. I'm Sofia Arnjus, heading up Investor Relations, and today I'm joined by our CEO, Richard Gustafsson, and our CFO, Susanne Larsson. After their presentations, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, and there are two ways to do that. So, if you have joined via the telephone, you can press star and one to ask a question. Or if you're instead watching via the webcast, you can already now type in your questions, and you will do that in the tab just above the slides. So without further ado, it's a great pleasure to hand over to you, Rikke. Please.

Thank you, Sofie. And a warm welcome to all of you for joining us at this quarterly report out. During the quarter, we continue to execute on our strategic priorities, strengthening our position in high-value industrial segments and advancing the separation of our automotive business. And in the quarter, we do deliver a strong performance despite volatile market conditions. As you can see from the right-hand side of this chart, organic growth came in at 2.4% in line with our guidance, driven by solid organic growth in specialized industrial solutions and bearing solutions that more than offset continued weakness in automotive demand. The adjusted operating margin is holding up well at 13.5% despite a significant headwind from FX or currency. And the main drivers behind this strong margin are fourfold. Firstly, we have a better and improved margin in our specialized industrial solutions segment. Secondly, we have a strong mix in the quarter, primarily driven by the fact that the industrial business segments are growing faster than our automotive business segment. Thirdly, we have been successful in our rightsizing activities and actually coming in somewhat stronger than we anticipated in the beginning of the quarter, equating to some 300 million kronor of savings in the quarter, which means a slight positive net after occurred the synergies. And fourthly, We have an increased production volume as we continue to build safety stock for ahead of the plan asset transfer for the automotive separation. Cash flow is weak in the quarter, negative 0.4 billion, as you can see also on the chart. And there are four drivers behind this, and Susanne will shortly take you through that in more detail. But the key highlights are that we build those safety stocks that I mentioned before, that is contributing to our margin. We are taking restructuring charges for the rights sizing program that we're on. We have somewhat higher accounts receivable due to that sales were somewhat stronger at the end of the quarter. And there are also some unfortunate timing effects in AP accounts payable in the quarter. On our continued strategic priorities, we do see that our efforts to create a more separated and focused automotive business is starting to yield benefits. And we see that it's laying a foundation for strong profitable growth that we'll touch upon later in this presentation. And in this quarter, we also, for the first time, report our business in different segments. And I will also take you through that just to remind you. And during this year, we're going to spend some time every quarter to share some more lights on the different business units that make up our segment Specialized Industrial Solutions to educate you and share some more insights on what we do in those areas. And first out this quarter will be lubrication. But starting with the segment, and I'm sure that you've already studied this, but just to remind everyone, so we're all on the same page. Going forward, we're going to report our industrial business in two main segments, the bearing solutions and specialized industrial solutions. And in this specialized industrial solutions, we have four business units, automotive, magnetics, seals, and lubrication. We also have a small other segment in industrial where we host our head office or lean corporate center as we call it internally and that cost was previously distributed to the different segments. Now we hold it here and here we'll also find trading between industrial automotive as we move forward. And then, of course, as long as we have automotive as part of our company, they will be in their own segment. And here they have their fully loaded cost and their own headquarter cost. So this will, to the extent possible, mirror what automotive will look like also after we have completed the separation. If we then move on and start to focus on the quarter and starting by organic growth by geographical region. And my comments on this page will cover all three segments of our business. Starting with our largest region, EMEA, where we have a negative organic growth of 1%, where we do see solid organic growth in specialized industrial solutions in all four business units, but especially strong in aerospace and magnetics. For automotive, demand remains somewhat weak, and especially when it comes to light vehicles. When it comes to bearing solutions, we still wait for the market to turn, where we have seen a rather weak development, or somewhat weak, I should rather say, development in distribution and services in the quarter, while there are some specific and encouraging green shoots as well, especially someone like I like to highlight would be agriculture and high-speed machinery. Turning to Americas, where we have a solid growth of 4%, to large extent driven by price mix activities in that particular market, but also here we see some industrial verticals that really stand out. Aero being one, agriculture being another, and also here high-speed machinery, to some extent driven by the fast growth in the data center development in that particular region. It's also encouraging to note that we have strong growth in our automotive aftermarket in this particular region. China, Northeast Asia, very stable growth at 4.5%, with a solid organic growth in both bearing solutions and specialized industrial solutions. We do see a strong demand in aftermarket and rail on the industrial side, to some extent driven by easy comparisons versus the same quarter last year. And for automotive, it's actually opposite. where we do report a negative organic growth in the quarter due to tough comparisons, especially for light vehicles in this particular region. India and Southeast Asia remains very strong across all three business segments, and some industries to really highlight here of significant growth would be heavy industries, again agriculture, and also light vehicles. If we then move and take a look at our segments and starting with our largest segment, Bearing Solutions, as you can see on the chart in the top right, representing more than 50% of our net sales and more than 75% of our adjusted operating profit. Organic growth came in at 2.4% for the segment as a whole, but demand is largely similar as we saw in Q4. We do see an improved demand in Asia that is offset by rather low or weak demand in EMEA. where we see that, especially on the distribution side and tailored towards rail, it's been rather low. And here we also see an impact from the Middle East crisis that also shined through in this particular region. The adjusted operating margin is 19.3%, which is very stable despite significant headwind from FX. And the main drivers here for the strong margin is a good development when it comes to price and mix. Here we have the benefit, as I mentioned before, from the right sizing activities that provide a somewhat net positive impact after the synergies. We do have a positive bridge effect from the world-class manufacturing program that we concluded at the end of last year. And here we also see some benefits from fixed cost absorption due to higher production volume as we build safety stock ahead of planned asset transfers. Moving to specialized industrial solutions, representing some 20% of sales and roughly 20% of our adjusted operating profit. Very strong organic growth, almost 9% in the quarter. Strong price mix execution across all four business units. And as I mentioned before, especially strong momentum in the segments of business units, aerospace and magnetic solutions. The adjusted operating margin is improving to 13.3% despite tough headwind from currency. And the main drivers behind this strong margin development is, for this one, I'd like to highlight two things. Firstly, it's a positive mix impact, where our air and magnetic businesses are growing faster than our lubrication and seals businesses. And then also that for all business units, as I mentioned before, we have strong progress or strong growth in aftermarket in all segments. The other area I'd like to draw your attention to is that we have a better product mix, both in lubrication and seals. And for lubrication, we have seen good growth in something we call automated lubrication systems, which is an important piece of the lubrication story, which I will come back to shortly and provide some more lights on. And then turning to automotive products. And this quarter representing some 26% of sales and 10% of our adjusted operating profit. Again, market conditions remain challenging, and you see we have a negative organic decline of some 2%, where we see negative growth in EMEA driven by light vehicles and commercial vehicles. We have flat growth in Americas, where negative growth in light vehicles is offset by strong development and aftermarket that I mentioned briefly before. In China and Northeast Asia, we are in negative growth territory, driven by tough comparison on the light vehicles area. And for India and Southeast Asia, we have strong growth, driven significantly by light vehicles and also aftermarket. The margin? It's robust, around 5% in the quarter. And the main drivers behind this performance is, again, mix. We have a strong aftermarket development that I mentioned a couple of times. We also see that our automotive business becoming more separated drives efficiencies in the operational setup that is also yielding benefits. And another area is also that we have been very effective when it comes to purchasing and procurement activities to reduce cost. On the negative side, we do have some reduced fixed cost absorption by lower volumes. And of course, as you can see on the chart, also a significant headwind from currency. So with that, I would like to hand over to Susanne, who will take you through the numbers in more detail. No, I will not. Sorry, my mistake. Billy, I promised you some deep times. So let me do those first. Let's start by providing some more clarity on our lubrication business. And... As you can see on the left-hand side, our new business roughly represents some 5 billion of sales. And seeing in the pie chart, the vast majority of those 5 billion comes from something we call automated lubrication systems. And if we double click on that and focus on the right hand side on this chart, you will see that our automated lubrication system, they do cover three distinct value chains for OEM solutions, engineer solution and aftermarket and services. And the value that our automated systems bring to the customers are rather significant because they provide more reliable and sustainable performance, securing the correct lubricant to the right areas in the right time and at the right amount. This drives cost reduction and clearly a reduction of total cost of ownership and increased efficiency for our customers. And by building strong relationship with these customers, that also deals good cross-sell opportunities for us when it comes to bearing solutions and sealing solutions. But we also said that we need to lift the adjusted operating margin in this particular business. And there are three pillars to our transformation that we have embarked upon to further strengthen our lubrication business. Firstly, we want to convert more of our manual solutions to automated lubrication solutions and services. Secondly, we need to build strong, streamlined products and value chains to really cater for these unique offerings for OEMs, engineered solutions, and aftermarket and service. And thirdly, we still need to do some optimization of our footprint to drive further cost efficiency and also drive regionalization, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, as you can see on this chart. Then turning to automotive. As you may recall, when we presented Automotive at the Capital Markets Day, we provided the roadmap for the future that consisted of two strategic pillars and five strategic levers. And this is the page that we used back then. I do not intend to take you through all five levers today, but I'd like to put some more color on two of them. The first one relating to how we win in leading segment and the third one, how we address the expandable. or how we expand the addressable market. And by being a more separated, dedicated automotive business, we already now start to see that we are tied to our customers, we are faster in our response times, and we are more focused and more efficient. And that is yielding benefits. We continue to win in leading segments. And as you can see, we have increased our hit rate when it comes to winning OERFQs significantly compared to the situation before we announced the separation. But what's even further or even more good news is that it's not just to be increased the hit ratio significantly, but the value of those contracts that I will be in also increase significantly. That builds a great platform for future growth opportunities. On the addressable market. We have been very systematic and focused in driving new distribution channels and broaden our product portfolio. And due to this work, we have signed several new distribution agreements across North America and Europe that are expected to yield some 1 billion of sales over the coming four years. Again, another piece of building a strong platform for future growth opportunities. And now it's time to actually hand over to Susanne to take us through the numbers in more detail.

Thank you, Richard. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Happy to do so. Starting off here with an overview. Net sales was down 8.7% in the quarter and this was mainly driven by the currency headwind of 9.9% negative. The gross margin ended at 29.3% and that was down half a percentage point compared to last year. In the quarter, we delivered a strong adjusted operating margin of 13.5%, which was flat year over year. And I will come back to that even more on the following page. The one-off items affecting comparabilities in the quarter amounted to a negative 308 million, where the automotive separation costs represented a negative 464 million. The optimization of the industrial footprint, a negative 81 million. And then we had impairments of fixed assets and some other one-offs of minus 178. Finally, we also recorded a capital gain from the divestment of Elgin that we reported on in the early part of quarter one, and that amounted to 415 million kronor. In absolute amount, the adjusted and non-adjusted operating profit, together with the net profit, was lower than last year, much explained by adverse currency effects. Altogether, we ended at an earning EPS of 3.6 Swedish krona, and an adjusted EPS would have been 4.25. If we move on to the bridge analysis then. So as I said, the just did operating margin was flat year over year, despite strong currency headwind, tariffs and negative synergies from our ongoing separation. And this is certainly a proof point of our strong underlying performance. From an organic growth of 2.4%, we delivered a contribution to the result of 2.1 percentage points. We had growth in both sales and manufacturing volumes together with the very solid price mix actions, particularly in the specialized industrial solutions. This explained the positive drop through together with production volumes exceeding sales driven by stock built up ahead of the channel transfer related to the automotive separation. On the cost side, As we talked about in the quarter four earnings, we have negative synergies from the automotive separation that were included and reported as from quarter one, as automotive now operates independently with their own dedicated IT, management and administrative structures. However, the strong momentum in the right sizing program delivered higher than expected savings in the quarter, compensating for these effects. The right-sizing savings in the quarter amounted to 300 million, and we expect the run rate of the savings to be fairly linear from the 1.2 billion we had in quarter one to the 2 billion we aim for in the end of quarter four 2027. For the full year 2026, we expect the savings to continue to be somewhat higher than the negative vicinity effect. Further on the cost side, material costs declined in quarter one, primarily driven by automotive, and in line with what we have reported also recent quarters. We continue to largely compensate for tariff costs also in quarter one, and we expect to continue to do that also in the quarter two. So net-net with all this said, costs ended largely flat at minus 17 million. With respect to the currency, we had a significant headwind that continued in Q1, explained much by the weaker dollar and Chinese yen year-over-year. FX impacted the adjusted operating margin for the group of 2.1%. Finally, in the structure here, it's represented by the net divestment of Hanover that we reported in Q2 last year, and the second aerospace divestment in Eldian that we now closed in the first quarter of this year. Moving on. Cash flow. Let me report on that. We recorded a weak operating cash flow in the quarter of a negative 446 million. mainly driven by some 700 million of payments related to IACs and a working capital build-up. Our operating profit landed at 2.6 billion, which was some 240 million lower than quarter one last year, partly explained by adverse currency effects. Depreciation, amortization and impairment was about 300 million lower than last year and was 960 million. It's lower than last year because last year included impairment charges that we took. Non-cash items and others amounted to a negative minus 1.175 million compared to 735 negative of last year. This increase is partly explained by the severance payout of earlier announced right sizing that are sizable this quarter. Taxes that was paid ended at 580, slightly less than last year and also slightly lower than quarter four. Then we have a high net working capital buildup of 2.3 billion compared to 1.8 billion last year. This is explained by the separation related buildup of stock. Accounts receivable that increased due to strong sales in the end of the quarter and that we had negative development of accounts payable mainly explained by poor timing effects. Our capital expenditure in the quarter amounted to a negative 772, which offset the cash inflow of a net 800 million related to the sale of Elgin and sales of the property. Moving on to the balance sheet and the return on capital employed. We had a net debt excluding post-employment benefits that increased by some 600 million in Q1 compared to year-end due to the negative cash flow. Still, we remain on low levels. Net debt in relation to equity excluding pensions ended at 10.7 compared to 10.2 at year-end. Net debt in relation to adjusted EBITDA remained on the same level as year-end, namely 0.8. The adjusted return on capital employed remained stable in the quarter one at 14.4 compared to a 14.3 level at year end. Finally, later today we will have our annual general meeting to which the board has proposed a dividend of 7.75 kronor per share to be paid in two installments, one now in April and another one in October. This takes us to my last slide around outlook and guidance. So the outlook for the quarter, as you have heard us talking about, we expect the market demand in the quarter two to remain at similar levels as in quarter one, and thus expect organic growth to be relatively unchanged, given more unfavorable comparisons year over year. Then, of course, the conflict in Middle East amplifies uncertainty to this outlook. The FX guidance for Q2, so due to sequentially more favorable FX rates, the currency guidance for Q2 is estimated to minus 100 million year-over-year based on the rates we had by the end of March. The guidance for the full year remains the same as we announced in Q4. And that means that we have a tax excluding impact from divestments and the automotive separation to be estimated around 28%. We remain with capital expenditure outlook for the full year of some 5 billion. And the one-off cost related to automotive separation and our footprint optimization is expected to be in the range of negative 2.5 to 3 billion this year, which is completely in line with the 6.5 billion guidance we talked about at our capital market day in November. The capital gain from LG and that we reported now in the first quarter is not included in these estimates. By that, I hand over to you, Rickard.

Thank you very much, Susanne. And let me just briefly wrap this up before we hand over to the Q&A session. We do see a strong execution in the quarter. And we are pleased that our ride-sizing activities are continuing at a high pace and in the quarter coming in somewhat better than we anticipated at 300 million kronor, as you heard us say. providing a slight positive net after taking off the incurred dissonances as well. And for the full year, we do believe that our rightsizing activities will somewhat provide a positive net also for the full year. We do see a strong margin despite significant headwinds, especially from FX, driven by good price and mix actions, but also a disciplined cost management. And we are pleased to see that we have improved our profitability or margin in our specialized industrial solution segment in the quarter. We do report our news first time and now report our new structure, which is another proof point and step that we are advancing our separation activities for our automotive business. And we stand firm. We do plan to finalize this in Q4, as we mentioned in the previous quarter. Q4 this year, as we mentioned in the previous quarter. We are creating two strong markets. independent businesses one fully dedicated and fully focused industrial business and one fully focused automotive business that will unlock put the full potential for both businesses as we move forward and we are pleased that we are continuing while doing all this change that we continue to progress on our strategic initiatives and that will strengthen our position in high value industrial segments to build a strong platform for future profitable growth So with that, I'd like to hand back to Sophie to help us navigate through the Q&A session.

Thank you, Rickard. So now it's time for opening up for questions. And I know that there are many of you that want to ask questions. So please limit it to one question per person. And if time allows, of course, you are very much welcome to rejoin the Q&A queue again. And hopefully we can also have time to answer your follow-up question. So just before we open up, let me remind you on how to ask a question. So if you are joining via the telephone, you press star and one. And if you would like to withdraw that question, you press star and two. For our webcast audience, you can type in your questions in the tab above the slides. We will start with a question from our telephone line, and it comes from Alex Jones at Bank of America. Alex, please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. Good morning. If I could ask about tariffs, please. Obviously, there have been changes recently to Section 232. I'm stealing $900 million. Could you talk a little bit about the impact on your business given the higher rates and the lack of USMCA exemptions and sort of what actions you're taking in terms of pricing, cost actions, et cetera, to mitigate that? And is that something that already impacts Q2 and is part of your outlook that you can continue to largely offset those tariff impacts or given your inventory's Will that be something we see more effects from into Q3 and H2? And if it's the latter, are you confident in still offsetting tariffs under this new Section 232 regime?

Thank you. Elika, do you want to share some light on this one? I'm happy to.

Since this tariff situation started a year ago, we have been able, through active price and mix actions, been able to offset and mitigate the vast majority of the impact from these tariffs. And what we know right now, we're going to continue to do so also in Q2 and as we move forward. And your specific question on 232. It's actually less impacting us because previously we had some taxes on 50% of the value of our bearings. Now it's 100% of the bearing, but bearings fall in the category of 25% tax. So basically it's a wash for us. So we don't see that that's going to have a significant implication. And therefore, our price mechanisms, both in terms of price increases and surcharges, should be able to continue to offset the cost for tariffs also at the levels that are now being predicted through the change in 2.3.2.

We will continue with a question from our webcast audience, and it comes from John Kim at Deutsche Bank. And the question is if we can help him with some color on price, mix and volumes in bearing solutions and specialized industrial solutions. And if we see the Q1 margin improvement year over year in specialized industrial solution as indicative of the year or more time and place. Rickard, do you want to take this one?

Yeah. I think the margin improvement that we've seen in the quarter, as I described, came from two particular activities or two drivers. One being mix and the other being a good kind of product development or product portfolio development. We don't guide by segment with the margins, so I can't really say so much more than that. But we do believe that our specialized industrial solution business will follow the same kind of seasonality as our bearing business.

So that means that, as you said, Rikard, Q1 is typically the strongest quarter, right? And we can also say that, as we talked about at the Capital Markets Day, we target or aim for a margin in the ballpark of where we have the bearing solutions margin midterm. So it's an important driver for us to deliver on the plus 17% adjusted operating margin target for the SKF post automotive separation midterm. So with that, let's continue with a question from our telephone line. And it comes from Rory Smith at Oxcap. Please, Rory, go ahead.

Good morning. It's Rory at Oxcap. Thank you for taking my question. I actually just wanted to come back to that point on volume versus price mix in bearing solutions in the quarter. If you could put a number on either a percentage point of the growth or an absolute number on how much of that was volume and how much of that volume was overproduction on the sort of building inventories ready for the spin and has that stopped as of Q2? Any sort of numbers around that particular point would be really helpful. Thank you.

Please. So we have somewhat of an overproduction, which is helping us on the organic development. So that really means that we have built some additional stock, which doesn't really sit in the sales yet. It sits in the production results. So when it comes to price mix, I think it is really explained by a strong portfolio, both pruning and mix with good aftermarket business in the SIS sector particularly, and also good price management particularly in industrial Americas, partly caused by the tariff situation.

And if I may here just add on that overproduction, it's around 100 million Swedish kronor then for the group impacting earnings positively. And it's in the organic bucket, as Susanne said. And it has to do with us, you know, producing more in bearing solutions ahead of the planned separation here.

it's in line with our plan to separate automotive thank you rory um we will uh continue with a question from uh chit sina at jp morgan chit yeah hi good morning thanks for taking my question uh my question is just on the savings versus the disabilities that you saw first in the quarter and then i guess what you're saying on for the full year So for the Q1, I think the savings delivered was maybe perhaps faster or stronger than maybe we had. So is that the positive impact in the quarter? Was that just more of the savings delivered rather than dis-synergies perhaps being lower than first anticipated? And then just on the four-year comment, does this mean that for each quarter the savings will be able to compensate for the negative dis-synergies or is it just that Q1 was more net positive and As we go into the year, the bridge benefit into Q3, Q4, the savings will be lower and therefore the synergies will be higher. Thank you.

Richard, please share some light on this one.

Sure. No, your comment was correct that we do see experience that we had somewhat higher savings from our right sizing program in the quarter than we may be anticipated walking into the quarter. The dis-synergies have not changed or are in line with our expectation. And even though we don't quantify them, we do provide an indication that with 300 million savings, that indicates a a slight net positive contribution after the synergies. And as we move forward, we do believe that the synergies will roughly be at the level that we've seen in Q1 throughout the rest of the year, quarter by quarter. And when we get talking about the savings for the full year, as I mentioned, we do believe that savings will be slightly net positive over our synergies. But in the second half, we're also going to meet the tail where we start to yield some benefits already in Q4 from the right sizing.

And we will continue with a question from Daniela Costa at Goldman Sachs.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I also just wanted to ask a clarification on the question regarding overproduction, whether that's going to continue into Q and after or not. But my main question was regarding now that you've mentioned you have this new hire more contracts in automotive than you expected when you pre-announced before the announcement of the spin. Does that change any ways how you think about the contract manufacturing timing and the impacts that can happen industrially?

Rickard, will you talk about the overproduction and the contract manufacturing here?

Yes. We do believe that there might be some overproduction, building some additional safety also in Q2 as we move forward with the planned separation and the planned asset transfer. So there might be some also in Q2 that we should expect. And when it comes to the speed of the asset transfers, The solid progress in winning new contracts and also in winning the RFQs that I mentioned and the improved value of those contracts is, of course, positive. That doesn't really change our ambition in terms of speed of moving assets and thereby faster reducing the contract manufacturing. We are already trying to do that with the highest possible speed that is doable. And we have put up a very, very aggressive scheme for ourselves on how to move all of these assets around at the shortest time possible.

Thank you. Thank you, Rickard. And we also got questions on the same topic here from William Mackey at Kepler Chevreuse. So I hope you also got your question answered here. So let's continue with another question from the telephone line. And this time it's from Klaas Bergelin at Citi. Klaas, please go ahead.

I just want to come back on the right-sizing that came in better than expectations. I just want to look at the full year. You say that this can be somewhat positive versus somewhat negative before. The difference between right-sizing and the synergies. What delta system is that in your view? It was somewhat negative before, perhaps 200 million. When I do the linear savings against the The synergies now, I get to that to be 50 to 100 million plus. I just want to understand the delta a little bit better between the negative to the somewhat positive. I don't know if you can help me with that. Thank you.

But you're right. We have a good momentum in the right sizing. And we even came in a little bit stronger than what we anticipated in quarter four. And that good pace continues now with having realized the savings of 300 million, which is then somewhat... instead of more than kind of the opposite, somewhat negative as we guided on. We believe that we will have a fairly linear development still, but I think the assumption that you're providing to have a net that is in the range of some 100 million would be appropriate for the year of positive then, positive right sizing compared to the disunity part.

Perfect. Thank you. Very quick one for you, Richard. You just want to come back to section 232. It's now 25% of total value of the bearings versus 50% on steel, aluminium, copper content before. I get a higher tariff impact for you from April 6th. No drama, but still a bit higher. Sorry, Richard, can you explain more why this is a wash for you? I didn't fully get that. Thank you.

No, you're right. Previously, or the current scheme, we do pay roughly, if I kind of paint with a broader brush, 50% tariffs on 50% of the product value. Now we're going to pay kind of 25% on 100% of the product value. So that's why I said it's going to be a wash.

All right, thank you.

Very good. And we will continue with a question from Andreas Koski at BNP Paribas. Andreas, please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. So my understanding is that you started to see stronger sales in March compared to the previous two months of the first quarter. So I just wonder why are you not being more positive in your outlook for the second quarter? Why are you not expecting that higher sales level that you saw in March? continue to accelerate into the second quarter.

Thank you.

Right. Normally in the first quarter, we do see that the march is somewhat stronger than January and February. But what we said is that we saw that it was unusually stronger this quarter than what we've seen in the past. So that has an impact also on AR, as we mentioned. Now, when we look into the trading activities and also what we see in April, we do see that it's following normal seasonality and we cannot really point to a significant uptick in activities. And therefore, our best estimate is that the activity levels will be roughly the same in Q2 as it was in Q1. And therefore, the comparison will indicate that we will see a somewhat positive growth.

Can I just follow up? So you're not expecting weaker demand in the coming months and in April because of the situation in the Middle East that could potentially come on top of your outlook?

I think what we see right now is that the Middle East situation is included in our outlook. Just to... to state, kind of put this in a context, Middle East for us equates to roughly 1% of group sites. So it's not massive. And it has been having impact, as I mentioned, especially in various solutions for EMEA during Q1. And that is probably the case also in Q2. Let's hope that this war ends soon. But given what we see right now and the best estimates we can give is what we now have actually, is the outlook that we provided.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Andreas. And we will continue with a question here from the webcast audience. And it comes from Olof Larshammar at Danske Bank. And it goes like this. I've heard that some of your competitors has recently announced list price increases in distribution to compensate for recent increases in energy and steel cost post-war in Iran. Have SKF announced similar increases or is that to come? Susanne, please.

So, Generally, I think ever since the Liberation Day with the sizable tariff that we have been facing, we have been successful in passing through the majority of that with price increases or surcharges. Now, when we are facing the Middle East crisis, we are taking... similar actions as soon as possible and that means that we are out in the market adjusting our price list during this quarter already and anticipate to have somewhat of an effect of that already in quarter two.

Thank you and let's go back to the telephone line and we have a question here from Tim Lee at Barclays. Tim, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. So, another question has been asked. I just want to follow up a little bit on the margin. I think there's also one factor that you mentioned would be on the pre-buy effects of the vehicle after market segment. And how was the impact in the quarter and whether it will be something like a repeat in the coming quarter? And what's the reason for that pre-buy? Thank you.

Hi, Tim. Let me clarify a little bit about that pre-buy impact. So for group, it was marginal in terms of group margin and say it was 40 bps on automotive margin. Let's continue with a question here from our webcast audience. And we... And also, I believe, Ritzke, that will also answer your question that you sent in here. So otherwise, please come back to us. We have a question from William Mackey again at Keppri Sjövröden. It's on networking capital here. Networking capital as a percentage of rolling sales surged to 34.6% from 30.4% at year end, adding approximately 1.8 to 2 billion Swedish kronor of incremental cash absorption relative to the prior normal range. What is the expected networking capital to sales ratio at year end 26 on management's base case? And at what point do separation-driven safety stocks normalize? So this is really a CFO question. Susanne, please. Yes.

So we ended last year at around 32%. And as you rightly say, we have increased up to 34% of sales this quarter, partly explained by built up of stock to cater for the planned channel transfers. We anticipate some overproduction and hence having certain stock implications also in the next quarter. And we believe that will normalize during the end of this year. So that's what we see. This means that what we talked about as normalized at the capital market day of some 29% of sales until long term coming down to 27%. will not realize this year. So this year is more of a year where we will be in line with what we had last year, full year value. And we will face some negative implications until the separation, really.

Thank you. And let's continue with a question from the telephone line. And it comes from John Kim at Deutsche Bank. John, please go ahead. Your line is open.

I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about the separation. I think it's still scheduled for November 20 this year. Can we talk about signposts when we should expect different kind of processes and documents?

Ike, do you want to share some light?

I will. And we do plan and we are committed to finalize this process during Q4 this year. So we reconfirmed that. And that means that you should expect to hear more, to get information brochure and prospectus will come during this fall. So after summer, You should expect to start to see more communication in terms of information brochure, then followed by an extra annual general meeting or an EGM. And then, of course, the automotive team will be out there with their own Capital Markets Day communication also during fall this year.

Basically, more information will follow here, second half. Thank you, John. Let's continue with a question from Chit Sinha at JP Morgan. Please go ahead, Chit.

Hi, thank you for taking my follow-up. Can you just provide more colour on the decision to consolidate the Americas facility? If I'm correct, you were adding capacity to Montreal early last year? And then was this expected when you issued the 2026 guide? Thank you.

Well, the consolidation in Americas and the closure of the Monterrey factory and moving that into two other factories in the Mexico region was part of the plan for our separation. It was included in the framework we gave at the Capital Markets Day for the cost of the footprint consolidation and the items affecting comparability that we need to take in midterm over the next few years to come. So that has always been the plan. When the investment decision was taken a couple of years ago to build this capability or this factory was based on a very different outlook when it comes to how the America's electrification of the light vehicle fleet works. And the speed of that has really been a very, very significant change in those forecasts since then. And hence, this factor is actually oversized. And we will be much better off by consolidating our industrial footprint in one part of Mexico and our automotive footprint in another part of Mexico. And as I said, this was part of the guidance that we gave at the Capital Markets Day.

Thank you, Richard. We will continue with a question from the webcast here. It's from Rory Smith at Oxcap, and it's on Middle East. So have we seen anything at all in our supply chains? And Rory's thinking specifically about lubricants, but any comment is appreciated. Richard, I hand it to you this weekend. Right.

Again, just to put this in context, our total net sales in the region equates to roughly 1% of our sales. So the direct impact from that point of view is not massive for us. Clearly, the increases in... in fuel prices has an impact. And as you heard Cezanne mention, we are already taking actions in order to compensate ourselves for increased fuel costs. But to your specific question, have you seen any disturbances in our supply chains? we can't really point to anything of any significance so far. And that has not been the case for us. And furthermore, I do believe that maybe the biggest concern that we have regarding how long this conflict will last is what this will do to global demand. And that question I think we all can speculate in and we only will know once we see the war come to an end.

Thank you. And it's now time for the final question here. And it comes from Andreas Koski at BNP Paribas. Andreas, please go ahead.

Thank you. It's a housekeeping question for Susanne, because when I look at your outlook you're guiding for a tax level of 28 of that excluding effects related to diverse businesses and the separation of the automotive business so i wonder if there will be any significant tax implications because of the auto spin and then secondly you're also guiding for a capex level of 5 billion and that is excluding capex related to the separation of the auto business so also there Will the separation of the auto business lead to a lot of extra capex in 2026 that we should take into account? Thank you.

So first taking the 28% tax guidance then. And yes, we are, as part of the separation country by country, we are facing some legislative implications on tax. And that actually will happen also as we finalize the separation country by country. So we had that in last year's result to some extent, and we envisage that to happen also in this. And that's why we guide on the underlying 2028 being the kind of guidance for 2026. Then you had the question. Let's see what that was. What was that?

So I can...

support with that.

We're guiding on capex for the full year now of around 5 billion and it's total capex for the group so including automotive separation. Just to clarify that. Thank you Andreas and I hand over and that's conclude the Q&A session for this time and I hand over to you Rickard.

Thank you, Sophie. And thanks to all of you, the audience, for joining us on this call and for your insightful questions. I believe that we do deliver a strong report in Q1 this year. We are pleased with a couple of things, especially pleased with a couple of things in this quarter. The fact that we are seeing an improved margin in our specialized industrial solution is It's very strong and positive. The fact that we are delivering ahead of our own plans when it comes to the ride-sizing activities, yielding a slight positive net after disengages, is also something I think is strong. And also, in general, that our automotive business is demonstrating that they can and will build an even stronger platform for future growth as they now become more independent, and that that also... made them deliver a stable margin despite rather tough headwinds from FX. It's also a good sign. And we are determined to conclude our separation by Q4 this year, as I mentioned. And we are excited about the future of the industrial business, building even stronger foothold and presence in key industrial verticals, where we can really add significant value and drive further profitable growth. So with that, I thank you so much for your attention and I wish you a great week ahead.