Troax Group AB (publ)

Hi everyone and welcome to the interim report for the second quarter for Trovax Group. My name is Martin Nyström and I'm the President and CEO of the Group. Today I'll walk you through the quarter, the financial outcomes and the key events before we open up for a Q&A towards the end.

I will start by sharing the presentation. So without further ado, let's dive into the quarter.

The second quarter was a record strong quarter from a top line point of view. The Group reports a 51% increase and our sales grew by 23%. And I'm particularly pleased, of course, by the fact that we saw order intake growing both organically as well as through our acquisitions. Our sales increased by 23% driven by our acquisitions and our organic invoicing declined in the quarter, which was due to the order mixed up we had late in the first quarter, where we had several mid-sized orders with longer lead time and also with deliveries going into the second half of the year. It was also pleasing to see the North American deliveries picking up pace after a slow start of the year after the transition of our inventory and our pick and pack operations from Chicago to Portland. Overall, I'd say we had a strong quarter, but I would also say that it's difficult to predict the demand in general, but there were clearly positive signs and areas that I would like to highlight. During the quarter, we saw solid recovery in the warehousing segment, both in Europe as well as in North America. And we also experienced solid activity and orders from the data center segment. On the more challenging side, we continue to be impacted by the challenging situation in the European as well as the Chinese automotive sectors. If I turn to profit, our adjusted EBITDA profitability came in at 13.0%. Our gross profit was in line with the last year's levels, despite the lower organic volume. And I would say we have had a transition quarter in North America, and also we have our acquisitions not being fully ramped up yet. So from that point of view, I consider this to be a good outcome given the delivered volumes that we had in the quarter. Our sales and administration cost rose as a consequence of our acquisitions. So we have added cost from our acquisitions. We have upgraded parts of our IT infrastructure and completed that. And we also had integration activities from our recent acquisitions in the quarter. Organically, I'm pleased to see that our sales and administration costs went down compared to last year. Our net debt level came in at 3.3, which is on the higher side for the Group and the two main drivers is the dividend payout as well as that we have re-evaluated our earn-out commitments from the three acquisitions we made late last year and beginning of this year. And I would say here as our orders turn into deliveries and our operational cash flow will increase and then also this ratio will come down gradually towards the end of the year and through the second half of the year. If I then start with a few of the key things in the Group, I would say a clear highlight for us in Trowax in connection to the quarter's ending is that we have now ramped up our new facility in Portland, so close to Nashville, in the Nashville area. And we have by that also closed production in our Chicago facility. And I think this really marks a new era for Trovax in North America, where we will be able to serve our customers better. We'll be able to have more efficiency through our automated production and our best in class practices, but also from having a leaner organization. And with our new operations, we will have greater capacity. Of course, we will have world-class automation and we will utilize all of the best practices that we have from other parts of the Group. At the same time, we've also adjusted our go-to-market model a little bit in the US, which will allow our customers then to access the full range of relevant solutions across all the different states. And I'm very happy to see now the Group strengthening our position significantly and also improve our competitiveness. And I think that bodes well for both future growth as well as for market leadership in North America. The acquisitions that we made of Deflex as well as Stompi in the fourth quarter now forms our foundation for our flexible barrier line, which gives us access to a larger share of our customers' wallets. and to date we have experienced great interest in these solutions and we're also busy with the integration to make this work as true solutions and true parts of the Group, both on the sales side as well as the operation side. And I would say these solutions have had a strong and good start in the Group and we and I are very excited to see what the future holds in terms of profitable growth coming from this new product line. The third highlight comes from the core of the core, and here we have launched the world's first machine guarding mesh panel, which is entirely made from recycled and reused material. And we're also using low emission steel to produce this. And I would say this is a very tenable and concrete step in our work to reduce the climate impact across the value chain. And with this product, it makes the same safe job as a normal Trovax panel, but it comes with more than 70% lower carbon emission footprint versus the standard without compromising on safety or the performance. And I think this is a great example of where we can bring innovation into our products and also show that we are truly the world leader when it comes to mesh pumps and machine guarding. And I think this is also a great example where we bring sustainability and safety performance go hand in hand. If I then turn to the market development, and this is the slide where we walk through how the different segments and the different geographies are developing. As usual, we look to the market through two lenses. So it's the geographical lens as well as the market lens. If I start with the total, we had an organic growth of 14% in the quarter, which I consider to be a very strong number. If I look to Northern Europe, we are back on the growth path with 13% year-on-year growth. The growth primarily comes from the warehousing sector as well as general industry, which we can say here also is partly related to data centers. And we also saw some green sparks in fact coming from the construction sector with our storage solutions. the automotive sector in North Europe continued to be soft in the quarter. In Southern Europe, the situation was a little bit different. So we had a decline of 11% on orders in Southern Europe. And here I would say both automotive, partly processing, as well as general industry were slightly softer. Then I'd say the exclamation point of the quarter is North America within order intake growth of 84%. And here, of course, we should note also that the comparison quarter wasn't the strongest after Liberation Day back in 2025. Nevertheless, we had a strong quarter order intake wise. The automotive sector grew after some two soft years, but we also experienced solid activity both in warehousing as well as in the processing industries, taking us to an 84% increase. Last but not least, we have the organic development in APAC, which continues to be somewhat slower. Here, the compare is rather strong from last year. And the order intake decline of the 14% is predominantly driven by the automotive and process industries in China and Japan, which were soft in the quarter. I said turning them to order intake overall very strong quarter also record level we and our order intake in total amounted to 98.3 million euros which corresponds to 51% increase if I look at that organic we had plus 14 structure very nice contribution with 37% increase and then we had a bit of currency headwind with minus one Moving over to sales. Our sales amounted to 84.2 in the quarter which is a 31% increase. The organic element here was minus 8 and this comes back to the order mix back in the first quarter. We will see that order intake from Q1 partly being then delivered into the second half of the year. The structural part was 31%, so good progress in our acquisition. And also here we had a currency impact of minus one, taking the total to plus 23%. Moving over to profit and profitability. So our adjusted EBITDA profit rose to 10.9 million euros in the quarter, which represents an EBITDA margin adjusted of 13.0. And I would say, given the lower organic volumes, both in EMEA as well as in Europe, as well as in APAC, I think this is a good outcome. We've also had our most intense When it comes to transitioning our Chicago operations to Portland, and we've also done great progress when it comes to integrating our newly acquired businesses into the group. So, I think this is a solid outcome for the quarter. Going forward, I'd also say that I expect some of the raw material prices to continue to develop, not only in North America, but also in Europe. And here it's important that they continue to be agile on the pricing side. Moving over to operating cash flow, which came in at €0.8 million, which is an improvement than in relative terms to the first quarter. And here it's obvious that having strong growth mainly coming from them from our acquisition, it ties up a bit of cash flow in working capital. But as we get the deliveries going during the second half of the year, we will increase our cash flow during the second half of the year. Turning to our net debt development, our net debt increased to 3.3 during the quarter from 2.7 in the quarter before. The main reasons for this is the dividend payout in May, as we have every year, and also re-evaluation of the earn-out continues of 11 million euro, which at this point is non-cash. As such this re-evaluation I think is positive because we do see stronger performance and of course contribution to the Group from these acquisitions than we originally anticipated. And as our order book turns into invoicing and cash the net debt will decrease during the second half of the year and aiming for levels then which are below our target which is 2.5 net debt to EBITDA. So, if I summarize the key figures, our order intake grew by 51% to 98.3, our sales grew by 23% to 84.2, our EBITDA profit rose to 10.9, which represents 13% EBITDA margin adjusted, and our net debt level increased to 3.3 after revaluation of our earn-out continuance. And last but not least, the adjusted EPS per share increased to 0.12 euros per share. So, in summary, we had a strong development in the second quarter and we passed a lot of milestones relating also to our strategy. I think we see some really encouraging signs in multiple important segments. and segments such as warehousing as well as data centers. At the same time, the future continues to remain difficult to predict and predict with certainty. Our broader safety portfolio including the flexible barriers and the data center solutions continue to gain traction in the market. I think we had strong evidence of that in the second quarter and which also bodes well for coming quarters and coming years. We started our North American new manufacturing production after an intense project, and this is truly a milestone that will improve our competitiveness and also profitability in North America going forward. And I'm also very happy that we now operate from a stronger platform overall in North America. And overall, I'd say the recent investments, acquisitions and operational improvements definitely also provide a stronger foundation for continued growth as well as profitability. And we will, goes without saying, continue to execute relentlessly on our strategy to make sure that we are in the pole position when our customers have needs and demands when it comes to industrial safety. And with that, I would like to end the presentation part of this call, and I would like to open up for Q&A. So if you have a question, please raise your hand and I will call your name and we will unmute the microphone.

We will start with Jonny Yin from SEB. Your mic should be unmuted.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, Martin. Can you hear me?

Good morning, Jonny.

Good morning. Startinging with the strong orders here. I want to break down the drivers a little bit closer because they are looking very impressive here. So can you maybe give a little bit flavor of sort of the mix between large orders driving the growth or was it more sort of smaller bread and butter if you focus in the Americas, for instance?

Yeah, I think overall we had growth in all these three. I think what stands out in the quarter is predominantly growth of what we would consider mid-sized orders. So it's not the mega orders that grew the most. I think if we look at North America in particular, we saw increase both in the bread and butter. but we also saw increase in the mid-sized and with a few examples also large orders. I think it's in North America, I think it's been more of a broad-based growth, which is probably what I consider to be the best mix of things. I understand. From a segment point of view, what's growing the most if we take North America is warehousing combined with with process, as I said before.

I understand, I understand. So there's no like, sort of say, timing of effect or any sort of one of orders. This is sort of a representation of their underlying business and businesses.

I think this is a good representation of where we are for the time being. As with every quarter, there could of course always be one order that comes into the quarter or gets postponed into the next, but there is nothing out of the ordinary in this quarter from this point of view.

Perfect, that's clear. And then M&A contribution seems also stronger here than expected. Was VishNet the main driver for that or what is happening there? Is there any timing effect there or is it sort of just taking market share better than expected?

Can you give some flavor? Yeah, I think all three acquisitions develop well. Then obviously Vish is the largest of the three companies we acquired. So from a from that point of view, they are contributing more in that sense. When it comes to Vish, I think we are very well positioned to capture the growth in the data center segments, both with data center solutions as well as with the wire trace and cable trace. That is the strength of Vish. also would say that the flexible barrier side develops well, but from a lower baseline in that sense. So from a growth point of view, they are all three delivering very nice performance in the quarter.

I understand, I understand. And then the question on cost and margin side of things, because I mean, even if we're just for sort of extraordinary high costs to your factory movement and such. It looks to be a little bit higher also if you compare it to Q1 here. So can you maybe give some flavor what is happening on the cost side if there's something you want to highlight there and is this sort of the fair cost base we can assume going forward as well or should it come down or up entirely from this level? And also can you comment something about it's very good to see that your orders are coming now and as they are utilized in your factory and such and convert that to sales, can we expect sort of a beta margin in line with your sort of historical past of, yeah, above 18% in beta in H2 already, is that a fair assumption?

Yeah, I think if I start with the cost levels, I think if we break that down a little bit, if I look at the gross profit side, I think there is more, there is, and the gross profit level is stable as such. I think that's given that we have lower organic volumes I think that's a good outcome. I think though that there is more still to be done definitely coming from North America and I think there is also more a bit more optimization that we shouldn't be do particularly in Europe and that relates to large extent still that we still have some improvements to do from the transfer from Poland to Sweden. So I think there is more optimization to be done on the gross profit level. Of course, volume will help our gross profit as well as we start to invoice. On the SDNA side, I think this quarter contained I think organically we are seeing lower costs, so the costs stem from our acquisitions. They come into the Group with the higher relative level, so as we grow the businesses, the costs will not necessarily follow. In the quarter, we also had some costs, of course, related to the US, which is one-off, but we also had some extra extra cost for IT, which will not be the case every quarter going forward as well.

So the IT cost, how much were they? They are not included in the one-offs in this quarter. How much were there?

No.

How much did it cost?

We're talking about a couple of hundred thousand euros in this case.

Okay. And they will disappear in Q3?

So, somewhere towards the end of the year.

Okay. Okay. And sorry, I understand that there can be more cost year on year, but sort of, if you compare it to Q1, Q on Q, is there an effect of seasonality on the new acquisitions that affect the cost base or.

No, not really. I think the increased cost on the acquisition side is more related to business volume than anything else since we have some commission base in that. So I think it follows the, you could say it follows the invoicing side more than anything else.

Yeah, but do you think historical EBITDA margin levels is that reachable in second half of this year already if you are converting these higher orders in your new cost and factory structure?

I think we will make sure that we invoice as much as possible. We'll do that as efficiently as possible and then we will hopefully also see some stronger profitability coming out of this machine. but let's say predicting whether that's going to be all visible in Q3 or all visible in Q4, I think I leave that to you to guess a little bit.

Okay, I understand.

But it's fair to say that Troax is a high leverage business with volume and nothing in that equation has fundamentally changed in the last couple of years. So I think it's fair to at least make that assumption.

Sounds exciting. I will go back in the queue for now, but thank you very much.

Thank you, Johnny. Then, next question would come from Gustav. Unmute your mic.

Yes, good morning, Martin. Good morning. I thought maybe just to build a bit more on Johnny's questions here also to get a bit more conviction here in the short term and the order conversion and what we've seen in Q2. I mean, if we just look at the Q2 orders, I mean, are there any orders that are sort of stretching into 2027, would you say?

We have parts of deliveries going for data centers, which are to their nature a little bit longer order to delivery or order to cash than the usual bread and butter business. So if we look at, if we take the core as an example, it's a very stable, steady, pretty short cycle business. Then when it comes to the warehousing projects, usually a little bit larger, as well as the data center, that cycle is prolonged. So when we have more of a mid-sized large warehousing and more of data centers, that cycle will then be stretched out a bit. So some of what we took in as orders now, for example, late in Q2, some of those last deliveries will then fall into beginning of 27.

Okay, that's very clear. And is it possible to say, you know, how much is related to data center and also, you know, mid-sized or larger warehouse orders of the order intake you present today?

Yeah, I think if we take the data centers, we're closing up on the 10% of the groups total on orders, I should say.

Warehouse?

Well, that is sort of mid-sized or as you define it.

So the warehousing segment is a mix of large mid-sized as well as you could say smaller what I used to call bread and butter. On the mid-sized orders we would probably have somewhere between 25 to 35 percent of that segment is made up by mid-sized for the time being.

Okay, that's very clear. And then maybe just to move into Americas a bit here, just to also here get a bit more conviction in the new factory and so forth. I mean, as your press release stated, you're fully up and running now and Chicago is completely closed. We should not expect any dual costs or anything here in Q3. Or is that correctly?

We should not be expecting any dual cost in Q3. from from a move or a transfer point of view. So I think that's that's a very, very good milestone. Then when you when you start to ramp up a new facility, of course, they're there, we always have a plan. But I've also know that it's not just turning on a switch, and then it goes from from nothing to 100% overnight. So of course, there will be a learning curve before we hit the optimal way of working in the US. We have some 70-80 new colleagues that needs to be trained. We have machinery that needs to be optimized and flows that needs to be optimized. So there will be a gradual the gradual effect of our North American operations will come here during the third and fourth quarter. But I think the big milestone has now been passed up. We've switched the production away from Chicago and closed that production.

Oh, that's perfect. And just sorry, is it is there a risk? You know, do you see a risk of a sequentially lower volumes in Q3 compared to Q2 due to the ramp up here in America specifically?

I don't think the risk is on the volume side as such, because during the transition period, we've also built an outsourcing supply chain. So I think from a servicing a customer and from an invoicing point of view, I think from that point of view, we should be in a better shape than we were in Q4 and also in Q1 for that matter. I think this will be a question of how much of that efficiency will get to the bottom line eventually, and how fast can we run and ramp up the efficiency in the new plant. And that's difficult for me to have a firm opinion of today when we just got going, so to speak.

That's fair. Just a final one, a very short one, sorry everyone. You comment on some orders having longer lead times in EMEA North here that you took end of Q1 that is stretching into H2. Is it possible to quantify this just to get some sense of what is coming through extra here in H2?

I could probably get back to you with a more firm number, Gustav, but I would say it's of the minus eight we recorded in now in the quarter, I would say the majority of that comes from these orders, or pretty much all of it.

Okay, perfect. That's very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you Gustav. Then next in line would be Daniel Lindqvist. Daniel.

Sorry, now I got my phones working again. Congratulations on a strong report. Change is drastic. Fantastic numbers this time around. I had most of my questions answered, but just quickly. I mean, you entered this quarter with a significant backorder backlog, especially in the North American market. Is that still in place, you would say? Judging by volumes, it should be.

Yeah, so in North America, we had troubles in the beginning of the year with our pick and pack operations that we moved first. We have gradually started to deliver out of that backlog, but we're not fully there yet. And the main reason for that is, of course, that we've had strong order intake and we've also had to prioritize a little bit among all of the customers and orders when we still haven't ramped up that capability fully. So there is still some of that backlog that technically needs to be delivered here during the second half of the year.

And also perhaps with a way into Q3,

Yes.

And then just try to gather things up. What have you done in total if we just look at the headcount? How much has been reduced the last year if we exclude the acquired units approximately?

Is your question related to to North America specifically or the Group in total?

No, for the Group in total, I mean, we've done much in North America that's happening now. I mean, in Group total, just comparing your total number of employees now.

Yeah, we've done roughly 300 people, give or take.

And that is how much of... We are close to 1400 now.

and we've then added, of course, employees also with our acquisitions.

And then how much volumes has been discontinued that was below average in profitability, approximately?

You could probably pull that from the report, but we are, it's It's quite some business, both partly from the Polish business, which is perhaps difficult to extract from the report. And then there is also the Lee divestment, which we made in the first quarter. That was roughly 10 million euros.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then that's all from my side for now.

Thank you, Daniel.

Then we move over to Anna Widström. Yes, hi.

A lot of great questions already, but my first one is, as Northern Europe is noting very good organic growth in the order you take, how much is that related to, let's call them, native volumes with the capability scaling up?

It's partly, call it Polish volumes, but it's not the lion part of that. The lion part of this is, in fact, coming from, you could say, other core products as well as data centers. So, it's a relatively small portion of that increased order intake coming from, you could say, the former Polish products, which are now Swedish products.

Okay, perfect. And then just thinking about as the acquisitions are performing very well in Topline, how has the scalability been on the operating margin for this business?

Today, it's been very good operating leverage on the Chinese side, on Vish. And there is still more leverage to be had on the flexible barriers. but I'm pretty sure that will come here during the second half and going into next year.

Okay, perfect. And could you give us just a few words on the drivers for the flexible barrier system, if you're sort of meeting a specific end market that's growing quite decently, or if it's like a structural shift towards flexible barriers in comparison to other solutions?

Yeah, I would say it's both. I would say we're definitely meeting a market which is where there is a lot of activity happening. So that's evident to me. At the same time, we're also meeting a market and market demand that is shifting away from steel and moving to flexible polymers. So I think and it's difficult to separate the two but I think it's clear that the market is definitely there and I think we are also we're not the largest player yet in this field so of course it also helps to be a bit of a challenger moving into this with our strong brand and our strong organization and I think that's also very welcome in this niche and I think that's also clear when we speak to a lot of customers that we have that they look to us as a very good and credible partner, just as they do for our mesh products that we have had as core. So I think it's a little bit of both.

Great, and then just a final one from my side. Is there any pricing effects in any of the regions in the order intake that we should be aware of, or is it negligible?

Yeah, so in the US, we're having a double-digit number. And in Europe, we have a low single-digit number. Okay. On average.

Perfect. Thank you.

Well, APAC is more flat.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Anna. Then I would like to move over to Viktor Fors. Here we go. Good morning. Good morning.

Thank Thank you for taking my questions. So just first on America as a follow-up, just trying to understand how much of the strong order intake is sort of attributable to a good underlying market here and how much is attributable to your own capacity. So, I mean, would you describe this level of order intake as something you could have achieved earlier had you had the capacity? Or is the market strong as well? Or how would you frame it?

I would say I think if I look at the 84% order growth that we saw in North America, I don't think the overall market has grown 84%. So from that point of view, I do think it's a signal of strength. If I then look at how that order intake is distributed, I think I'm very happy to see both that we have a mix of somewhat larger orders, which might not be repetitive every month. But where I'm particularly pleased is that when I look at the, you could say the mid-sized customers and the mid-sized orders, as well as the bread and butter business that we have growth in all three buckets or segments, if you will. So from that point of view, I consider the overall to have improved during the quarter. comparing to both the first quarter, but also then to last year. Yeah, that's clear.

Okay. And then just another one. So on contingent considerations, the 11 million revaluation here in the quarter, just wondering if you could help us frame it a bit towards sort of the maximum payout for these acquisitions where you are in relation to that.

yeah so perhaps a bit of context to this when we as we got the acquisitions into the Group we made our best estimate of where we would end up with the earn out payments that will happen in 28 and now since we have had very strong development and our prediction is then also or our forecast going forward is that we will continue to have a stronger development than what we originally thought. That's why we have then adjusted and re-evaluated these continuance. If we look at where we are on the scale, we are somewhere between 80 and 90% of total.

Okay, perfect, very clear. And then just a final one on seasonality in the acquired units. I mean, we know Q1 is seasonally weak for VishNet. Just comparing Q2 and Q3 and Q4, is there any seasonality we should be aware of in those units?

not over and above what we have experienced in our business to date. So I think from that point of view, nothing extraordinary. I think what we are exposed to is for sure, I'm not sure if that's seasonality, but it's surely demand coming from the data center side. That is a big driver for this. and I don't think that's a Q1 to Q4 seasonality necessarily. I think it's more a question of demand and order timing from the hyperscalers in that business.

Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Thanks, Victor.

Then I see Jonny's hand raised again. I'm not sure if that's a new question or if this is...

I have some more questions. Yes. Just want to have a clarification on the price effect. Did you say that that impact in the US double-digit is both on order intake and sales in this quarter? And also, do you feel like you're sort of caught up with the raw material prices at this level right now? Or are you still chasing them?

That's... Yeah. So on the order intake side, we have a double-digit number as price effect. And on the sales side, we have something that is not that far away from it, but a notch below. So that means that we are pretty much in balance from a price cost point of view now in the US, which was a problem or a challenge for us in the beginning of the year. So we've made progress with this question and we are close to on par or not far away from it.

I understand. Thank you for that clarification. So maybe on the P&L side in this quarter, price is more minor in total, because I suppose low-singer digits in Europe, that is also an order intake then?

Yes.

Yes. Okay, good. Then I want to just ask a little bit of clarification, because Vistet and Acquire Acquisitions units here, they've been very, I mean, impressive. So can you maybe shed some more background here, why they are developing so strong? I mean, is it pure sort of a customer exposure mix, or is it Do they have other sales channels or how come they are so strong?

I think they have a very strong offering. If we look to the wiretrace, which is their base business, they are a very strong player in that. Obviously, there is a lot of wiretrace going into data centers as well. Then that has expanded into adjacent products that would go into data centers. And then there is for sure a bit of You could say customer mix into this as well where there is more hyperscaler exposure than the rest of the group.

Okay. There's one final one on outlook, because I think you said in your last quarter that you saw some stronger activity towards the end of Q1, and now it seems like it materialized rather significantly here in Q2. So what is your gut feeling or momentum you see entering the second half of this year? Can you maybe elaborate there?

Yeah, I think I've been saying this for a few quarters now. I think what is developing you could say in relative terms better continues to develop better and with better I am then talking about the warehousing segment now data centers as well while the segments where we've had more of a flat or declining curve I think that also continues so I don't see any positive signs for example from European automotive which continues to be soft So my very short-term prediction would be that it's stable. So what has been a little bit better continues to be better, and what has been a bit more challenging continues to be challenging.

I understand, I understand. But given your mix and exposure now and customer mix, it feels like the warehousing and data center exposure, could that sort of offset, the positive effects could offset the sort of negative effects from the automotive industry? Is that your feeling?

That's part of our strategy that we want to reposition our exposure and our group to something that is more attractive and more appealing growth-wise.

I understand. Sounds exciting. We'll see. Thank you very much and have a great summer, Martin.

Thanks, Jonek. And with that, I don't see any further questions.

So I would then say it's time for me to say thank you for calling in and for spending the time with me here. And if not, if I don't see you before, I'll see you all in a quarter's time. So thank you and bye bye.